THE 
_ MINISTRY orm SPIRIT 


‘HE MINISTRY OF THE SPIRIT 


THE 
MINISTRY OF THE SPIRIT 


/ SOL OGIGAL SES 


By A. J..GORDON, D.D. 


WITH AN INTRODUCTION 
By Rev. F. B. MEYER 


MINISTER AT CHRIST CHURCH, LONDON 


PHILADELPHIA 
Tuer AMERICAN Baptist PUBLICATION SOCIETY 
1701-1703 CHESTNUT STREET 


Copyright 1894 by the 
AMERICAN BAPTIST PUBLICATION SOCIETY 


PRINTED IN U. S. A, 


TO THE 
INHERITORS OF THE SPIRIT 


PREFACE 


aT is not claimed that in this little volume 
Hrs all has been said that might be said 
eA) upon the subject treated. On the con- 
Sie the writer has proceeded upon the belief 
that the doctrine of the Holy Spirit can be better 
understood by limiting the sphere of discussion, 
rather than by extending it to the largest bounds. 
For finite beings, at least, presence is more jntel- 
ligible than omnipresence. So, though the sub- 
ject of this book is in itself profcundly mysteri- 
ous, we have sought to simplify it by dwelling 
~ upon the time-ministry of the Holy Ghest without 
entering upon the consideration of his eternal 
ministry. What the Spirit did before the incarna- 
tion of Christ, and what he may do hereafter 
beyond the second advent of Christ, is a question 
hardly touched upon in this volume. We have 
sought rather to emphasize and to magnify the 
great truth that the Paraclete is now present in the 
church : that we are living in the dispensation of 
the Spirit, with all the unspeakable blessing for 


the church and for the world which this economy 
vii 


Vili PREFACE 


provides. Hence, as we speak of the ministry of 
Christ meaning a service embraced within defined 
limits, so we name this volume the ‘‘ Ministry of 
the Spirit,’’ as referring to the work of the Com- 
forter extending from Pentecost to the end of this 
dispensation. 

How deep a subject for a study! What 
prayer more becoming for those entering upon it 
than the humble petition that the Spirit himself 
will teach us concerning the Spirit! Deeply 
sensible of the imperfection of this work, it is 
now committed to the use and blessing of that 
Divine Person of the Godhead of whom it so 
unworthily speaks. 


AL JeGi 


Boston, Dec., 1894. 


INTRODUCTION 


R/T is remarkable how many in these last 
days have been led to deal with the 
sublime subject to which this treatise is 
devoted. Without doubt the mind of the church 
is being instructed, and her heart prepared for a 


recognition of the indwelling, administration, and 
co-operation of the blessed Paraclete, which has 
never been excelled in her history, and is fraught 
with the greatest promise both to her and to the 
world. 

Each of these treatises has brought out some 
new phase in respect to the person or mission of 
the Holy Spirit, but I cannot recall one that is 
so lucid, so suggestive, so scriptural, so deeply 
spiritual as this, by my beloved friend, Dr. 
Gordon. The chapters on the Embodying, the 
Enduement, and the Administration of the Spirit 
seem specially fresh and helpful. But all is good, 

1x 


\ 


x INTRODUCTION 


and deserving of prayerful perusal. Let only 
such truths be well wrought into the mental and 
spiritual constitution of God’s servants, and there 
would be such a revival of pure and undefiled 
religion in the churches, and such marvelous 
results through them on the world that the age 
would close with a world-wide Pentecost. And 
there are many symptoms abroad that this also is 
in the purpose of God. Nothing else can meet 
the deepest needs and yearnings of our time. 

Christianity is beset with three powerful cur- 
rents, which insidiously operate to deflect her from 
her course. Materialism, which denies or ignores 
the supernatural, and ‘concentrates its heed on 
ameliorating the outward conditions of human 
life; criticism, which is clever at analysis and 
dissection, but cannot construct a foundation on 
which the religious faculty may build and rest ; 
and a fine literary taste, which has greatly devel- 
oped of late, and is disposed to judge of power 
by force of words or by delicacy of expression. 

To all of these we have but one reply. And 
that is, not a system, a creed, a church, but the 
living Christ, who was dead, but is alive forever- 
more, and has the keys to unlock all perplexities, 
problems, and failures. Though society could be 


reconstituted, and material necessities be more 


INTRODUCTION xi 


evenly supplied, discontent would break out again 
in some other form, unless the heart were satisfied 
with his love. The truth which he reveals to the 
soul, and which is ensphered in him, is alone able 
to appease the consuming hunger of the mind for 
data on which to construct its answer to the ques- 
tions of life and destiny and God, which are ever 
knocking at its door for solution. And men have 
yet to learn that the highest power is not in words 
or metaphors or bursts of eloquence, but in the 
in-dwelling and out-working of the Word, who is 
the wisdom and the power of God, and who deals 
with regions below those where the mind vainly 
labors. 

Jesus Christ, the ever-living Son of God, is the 
one supreme answer to the restlessness and travail 
of our day. But he cannot, he will not reveal him- 
self. Each person in the Holy Trinity reveals 
another. The Son reveals the Father, but his own 
revelation awaits the testimony of the Holy Ghost, 
which, though often given directly, is largely 
through the church. What we need then, and 
what the world is waiting for, is the Son of God, 
borne witness to and revealed in all his radiant 
beauty of the ministry of the Holy Spirit, as he 
energizes with and through the saints that make 
up the holy and mystical body, the church. 


xii INTRODUCTION 


It is needful to emphasize this distinction. In 
some quarters it seems to be supposed that the 
Holy Spirit himself is the solution of the perplexi- 
ties of our time. Now what we may witness in 
some coming age we know not, but in this it is 
clear that God in the person of Christ is the one 
only and divine answer. Here is God’s yea and 
amen, the Alpha and Omega, sight for the blind, 
healing for the paralyzed, cleansing for the pol- 
luted, life for the dead, the gospel for the poor and 
sad and comfortless. Now we covet the gracious 
bestowal of the Spirit, that he may take more 
deeply of the things of Christ, and reveal them 
unto us. When the disciples sought to know the 
Father, the Lord said, He that hath seen me hath 
seen the Father. It is his glory that shines on 
my face, his will that molds my life, his purpose 
that is fulfilled in my ministry. So the blessed 
Paraclete would turn our thought and attention 
from himself to him, with whom he is One in the 
Holy Trinity, and whom he has come to reveal. 

Throughout the so-called Christian centuries 
the voice of the Holy Spirit has borne witness to 
the Lord, directly and mediately. Directly, in 
each widespread quickening of the human con- 
science, in each revival of religion, in each era 


of advance in the knowledge of divine truth, in 


INTRODUCTION Xili 


each soul that has been regenerated, comforted, 
or taught. Mediately his work has been carried 
on through the church, the body of those that 
believe. But, alas! how sadly his witness has 
been weakened and hindered by the medium 
through which it has come. He has not been 
able to do many mighty works because of the 
unbelief which has kept closed and barred those 
avenues through which he would have poured his 
glad testimony to the unseen and glorified Lord. 

The divisions of the church, her strife about 
matters of comparative unimportance, her magni- 
fication of points of difference, her materialism, 
her love of pelf and place and power, her account- 
ing herself rich and increased in goods and need- 
ing nothing, when she was poor, and miserable, 
and blind, and naked—these things have not 
only robbed her of her testimony, but have 
grieved and quenched the Holy Spirit, and _ nulli- 
fied his testimony. 

We gladly hail the signs that this period of 
apathy and resistance is coming toaclose. The 
Church which is in the churches is making herself 
felt, is arising from the dust and arraying herself 
in her beautiful garments. There is a widespread 
recognition of the unity of all who believe, to- 


gether with an increasing desire to magnify the 


xiv INTRODUCTION 


points of agreement and minimize those of diver- 
gence. The great conventions for the quickening 
of spiritual life on both sides of the Atlantic in 
which believers meet, irrespective of name or sect, 
are doing an incalculable amount of good in 
breaking down the old lines of demarcation, and 
making real our spiritual oneness. The teaching 
of consecration and cleanliness of heart and life 
is removing those obstacles that have restrained 
and drowned the Spirit’s still small voice. The 
fuller’s soap and the refiner’s fire have been 
largely resorted to, with the best results. And as 
believers have become more consistent and 
devoted, they have grown increasingly sensitive 
to the indwelling, energy, and co-witness of the 
Holy Spirit. 

If only this glorious movement is permitted to 
achieve its full purpose, the effect will be trans- 
cendently glorious. The church will become as 
pliant to the Divine Tenant as the resurrection 
body of our Lord to the impulse of his divine 
nature. And so the Lord Jesus will increasingly 
become the object of human hope, the center 
around which the concentric circles of human life 
shall circle. 

That the Lord Jesus should be thus magnified 
and glorified through the ministry of the Holy 


INTRODUCTION XV 


Spirit, and with this end in view, that the hearts 
and lives of believers should be made more sensi- 
tive to and receptive of his blessed energy, this 
treatise has been prepared ; and I add my testi- 
mony to the beloved author’s, that in the mouth 
of two witnesses, every word may be established ; 
and my prayer to his that the yea of the Spirit to 
the great voice of the gospel may be heard more 


mightily and persistently amongst us. 
F. Bs. MEYER. 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER I 


THE AGE-MISSION OF THE SPIRIT. INTRODUCTORY, 19 


GERAD havarkl 


THETA DVEN TO OF THEESPIRIT ys) Siiiedugtybe dis eS 


CHAPTER III 


Mth eNAMING OF ShHE SPIRIL | peice cee ie. 8 eens 4I 


CHAPTER LV 


THE EMBODYING OF THE SPIRIT, . ... + + 59 
CHAPTER V 
THE ENDUEMENT OF THE SPIRIT, . . . +. +e. 73 


I. Sealing; 2. Filling; 3. Anointing. 


CHAPTER VI 


THE COMMUNION OF THE SPIRIT, ..-.... - 103 


1. The Spirit of Life: Our Regeneration. 
2. The Spirit of Holiness : Our Sanctification. 
3. The Spirit of Glory : Our Transfiguration. 


2 xvii 


XVill CONTENTS - 


CHAD URE V It 


THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE SPIRIT, . ... . 133 
1. Inthe Ministry and Government of the Church. 
2. In the Worship and Service of the Church. 
3. Inthe Missionary Enterprise of the Church. 
CHAPTERS VIII 


THE. INSPIRATION OFPSEHE S SPIRITS.) Sie. spans 167 


CHAPTER IX 
THE CONVICTION® OFTHE? SPIRIT, te. ec ee 187 


1. Of Sin ; 2. Of Righteousness; 3. Of Judgment. 


ACP Ra 


THE- ASCENT - OF DTHE SPIRIT, 2  « ¢ oor eee, 


THE AGE-MISSION OF THE 
SPIRIT 


“It is evident that the present dispensation under 
which we are is the dispensation of the Spirit, or of the 
Third Person of the Holy Trinity. To him in the Divine 
economy, has been committed the office of applying the 
redemption of the Son to the souls of men by the voca- 
tion, justification, and salvation of the elect. We are 
therefore under the personal guidance of the Third Per- 
son, as truly as the apostles were under the guidance of 
the Second.” —Henry Edward Manning. 


20 


THE AGE-MISSION OF THE SPIRIT 


INTRODUCTORY 


ee N some observations on the doctrine of 
the Spirit, which lie before us as we 
write, an eminent professor of the- 
a es on the disproportionate attention 
which has been given to the person and work of 
the Holy Spirit, as compared with that bestowed 
on the life and ministry of Jesus Christ. It is 
affirmed, moreover, that in many of the works upon 
the subject now extant there is a lack of definite- 
ness of impression which leaves much still to be 
desired in the treatment of this subject. These 
observations lead us to ask : Why not employ the 
same method in writing about the Third Person 
of the Trinity as we use in considering the Sec- 
ond Person? Scores of excellent lives of Christ 
have been written; and we find that in these, 
almost without exception, the divine story begins 
with Bethlehem and ends with Olivet. Though 
the Saviour lived before his incarnation, and con- 
tinues to live after his ascension, yet it gives a cer- 
tain definiteness of impression to limit one’s view 


to his historic career, distinguishing his visible life 
2z 


22 THE MINISTRY OF THE SPIRIT 


lived in time from his invisible life lived ir 
eternity. 

So in considering the Holy Spirit, we believe 
there is an advantage in separating his ministry in 
time from his ministry before and after, bounding 
it by Pentecost on the one side, and by Christ’s 
second coming onthe other. We have to confess 
that in many respects one of the best treatises on 
the Spirit which we have found is by a Roman 
Catholic—Cardinal Manning. Notwithstanding 
the papistical errors which abound in the volume, 
his general conception of the subject is in some 
particulars admirable. His treatise is called ‘‘ The 
Temporal Mission of the Holy Ghost.’’ How 
much is suggested by this title! Just as Jesus 
Christ had a time-ministry which he came into the 
world to fulfill, and having accomplished it returned 
to the Father, so the Holy Spirit, for the fulfillment 
of a definite mission, came into the world at an 
appointed time ; heis now carrying on his ministry 
on earth, and in due time he will complete it and 
ascend to heaven again—this is what these words 
suggest, and what, as we believe, the Scriptures 
teach. If we thus forin a right conception of this 
present age-ministry of the Spirit, we have a defi- 
nite view-point from which to study his operations 
in the ages past, and his greater mission, if there 
be such, in the ages to come. 

Now we conceive that the vagueness and mys- 
tery attaching in many minds to the doctrine of the 
Spirit, are due largely to a failure to recognize his 
‘time-ministry, distinct from all that went before 


THE AGE-MISSION 23 


and introductory to all that is to come after—a 
ministry with a definite beginning and a definite 
termination. Certainly no one can read the fare- 
well discourse of our Lord, as recorded by John, 
without being impressed with the fact that just as 
distinctly as his own advent was foretold by 
prophets and angels, he now announces the advent 
into the world of another, co-equal with himself, 
his Divine successor, his other self in the myste- 
rious unity of the Godhead. And moreover, it 
seems clear to us that he implied that this coming 
One was to appear not only for an appointed work, 
but for an appointed period: ‘‘ He shall give you 
another Comforter, that he may abide with you 
forever’’—Zic tov aidva. If we translate literally 
and say ‘‘for the age,’ it harmonizes with a 
parallel passage. In giving the great commis-: 
sion, Jesus says: ‘‘And lo, Iam with you alway, 
even unto the end of the age.’ Here his 
presence by the Holy Ghost is evidently meant. 
The perpetuity of that presence is guaranteed, 
«‘with you all the days’’ ; and its bound deter- 
mined, ‘‘ unto the end of the age.’’ Not that 
it need be argued that he shall not be here after 
this dispensation is finished; but that there is 
such a thing as a temporal mission of the Holy 
Spirit does seem to be implied. And a full study 
confirms the view. The present is the dispensa- 
tion of the Holy Ghost; the age-work which he 
inaugurated on the day of Pentecost is now 
going on, and it will continue until the Lord 
Jesus returns from heaven, when another order 


24. THE MINISTRY OF THE SPIRIT 


will be ushered in and another dispensational 
ministry succeed. 

In the well-known work of Moberly, on ‘‘ The 
Administration of the Holy Spirit in the Body of 
Christ,’’ the author divides the course of redemp- 
tion thus far accomplished into these three stages : 
The first age, God the Father; the second age, 
God the Son; and the third age, God the Holy 
Ghost. This distribution seems to be correct, and 
so does his remark upon the inauguration of the 
last of these periods on the day of Pentecost. 
‘‘At that moment,”’ he says, ‘‘ the third stage of 
the development [manifestation] of God for the 
restoration of the world finally began, never to 
come to an end or to be superseded on earth till 
the restitution of all things, when the Son of Man 
shall come again in the clouds of heaven, in like 
manner as his disciples saw him go into heaven.”’ 
And what shall be the next period, ‘‘the age to 
come,’’ whose powers they have already tasted 
who have been ‘‘made partakers of the Holy 
Ghost’ ? This question need not be answered, 
as we have done all that is required, defined the 
age of the Spirit which constitutes the field in 
which our entire discussion lies. 


il 
THE ADVENT OF THE SPIRIT 


“‘ Therefore the Holy Ghost on this day—Pentecost— 
descended into the temple of his apostles, which he had 
prepared for himself, as a shower of sanctification, 
appearing no more as a transient visitor, but as a per- 
petual Comforter and as an eternal inhabitant. He came 
therefore on this day to his disciples, no longer by the 
grace of visitation and operation, but by the very presence 
of his majesty.” —Augustine. 

26 


II 


THE ADVENT OF THE SPIRIT 


NOR the Holy Ghost was not yet,’’ is the 
a more than surprising saying of Jesus 
nm} when speaking of ‘‘the Spirit which 
they that believe on him should receive.’’ Had 
not the Spirit been seen descending upon Jesus 
like a dove at his baptism, and remaining on him? 
Had he not been the divine agent in creation, and 
in the illumination and inspiration of the patri- 
archs and prophets and seers of the old dispensa- 
tion? How then could Jesus say that he ‘‘ was 
not yet given,’’ as the words read in our Common 
version? The answer to this question furnishes 
our best point of departure for an intelligent study 
of the doctrine of the Spirit. Augustine calls the 
day of Pentecost the ‘‘ dies natalis’’ of the Holy 
Ghost ; and for the same reason that the day when 
Mary ‘‘ brought forth her first-born son’’ we name 
‘‘the birthday of Jesus Christ.’’ Yet Jesus had 
existed before he lay in the cradle at Bethlehem ; 
he was ‘‘in the beginning with God’’ ; he was 
the agent in creation. By him all things were. 


But on the day of his birth he became incarnate, 
27 


28 THE | MINISTRY: OF SINE SPIRE 


that in the flesh he might fulfill his great ministry 
as the Apostle and High Priest of our confession, 
manifesting God to men, and making himself an 
offering for the sins of the world. Not until after 
his birth in Bethlehem was Jesus in the world in 
his official capacity, in his divine ministry as 
mediator between man and God; and so not till 
after the day of Pentecost was the Holy Spirit in 
the world in his official sphere, as mediator 
between men and Christ. In the following senses 
then is Augustine’s saying true, which calls Pente- 
cost ‘‘ the birthday of the Spirit’’ : 

1. The Holy Spirit, from that time on, took up 
his residence on earth. The Christian church 
throughout all this dispensation is the home of the 
Spirit as truly as heaven, during this same period, 
is the home of Jesus Christ. This is according to 
that sublime word of Jesus, called by one ‘‘the 
highest promise which can be made to man”’ : 
‘Tf a man love me he will keep my words: and 
my Father will love him, and we will come unto 
him, and make our abode with him’’ (John 14 : 23). 
This promise was fulfilled at Pentecost, and the 
first two Persons of the Godhead now hold resid- 
ence in the church through the Third. The Holy 
Spirit during the present time is in office on earth ; 
and all spiritual presence and divine communion 
of the Trinity with men are through him. In 
other words, while the Father and Son are visibly 
and personally in heaven, they are invisibly here 
in the body. of the faithful by the indwelling of the 
Comforter. So that though we affirm that on the 


PAE A DVEN LT, OF THEY SPIRIT 29 


| day of Pentecost the Holy Spirit came to dwell 


upon earth for this entire dispensation, we do not 


imply that he thereby ceased to bein heaven. Not 
with God, as with finite man, does arrival in one . 
place necessitate withdrawal from another. Jesus 


uttered a saying concerning himself so mysterious 


-and seemingly contradictory that many attempts 


have been made to explain away its literal and 
obvious meaning: ‘‘And no man hath ascended 


up to heaven but Ae that came down from heaven, 
even the Son of man who ts in heaven’’—Christ 


on earth, and yet in glory ; here and there, at the 
same time, just as a thought which we embody in 
speech and send forth from the mind, yet remains 
in the mind as really and distinctly as before it 
was expressed. Why should this saying concern- 
ing our divine Lord seem incredible? And as 
with the Son, so with the Spirit. The Holy Ghost 
is here, abiding perpetually in the church ; and he 
is likewise there, in communion with the Father 
and the Son from whom he proceeds, and from 
whom, as co-equal partner in the Godhead, he can 
never be separated any more than the sunbeam 
can be dissociated from the sun in which it has 
its source. 

2. Again: The Holy Spirit, in a mystical but 
very real sense, became embodied in the church 
on the day of Pentecost. Not that we would by 
any means put this embodiment on the same plane 
with the incarnation of the Second Person of the 
Trinity. When ‘‘the Word was made flesh and 
dwelt among us,’’ it was God entering into union 


30 THE MINISTRY OF THE SPIRIT 


with sinless humanity ; here it is the Holy Spirih 
uniting himself with the church in its imperfect 
and militant condition. Nevertheless, it is 
according to literal Scripture that the body of the 
faithful is indwelt by the divine Spirit. In this 
fact we have the distinguishing peculiarity of the 
present dispensation. ‘‘For he dwelleth with 
you and shall be in you,’’ said Jesus, speaking 
anticipatively of the coming of the Comforter ; 
and so truly was this prediction fulfilled that ever 
after the day of Pentecost the Holy Spirit is 
spoken of as being in the church. ‘‘/fso be that 
the Spirit of God dwell in you’’ is the inspired 
assumption on which the deep teaching in 
Roman eighth proceeds. All the recognition and 
deference which the disciples paid to their Lord 
they now pay to the Holy Spirit, his true vicar, 
his invisible self, present in the body of believers. 
How artlessly and naturally this comes out in the 
findings of the first counsel at Jerusalem: ‘It 
seemed good ¢o the Holy Ghost and to us’’ runs 
the record ; as though it had been said: ‘‘ Peter 
and James and Barnabas and Saul and the rest 
were present, and also just as truly as was the 
Holy Ghost.’’ 

And when the first capital sin was committed 
in the church, in the conspiracy and falsehood 
of Ananias and Sapphira, Peter’s question is: 
‘‘Why hath Satan filled thine heart to lie to the 
Holy Ghost ?’’ ‘‘ How is it that ye have agreed 
together to tempt the Holy Ghost?’’ Not only is 
the personal presence of the Spirit in the body of 


THE ADVENT OF ‘THE SPIRIT 31 


believers thus distinctly recognized, but he is there 
in authority and supremacy, as the center of the 
assembly. ‘‘ Incarnated in the church !’’ do we 
say? We get this conception by comparing 
together the inspired characterizations of Christ 
and of the church. ‘‘This temple’’ was the 
name which he gave to his own divine person, 
greatly to the scandal and indignation of the Jews ; 
and the evangelist explains to us that ‘‘he spoke 
of the temple of his body.’’ A metaphor, a 
type! do we say? No! He said so because it 
was so. ‘‘ The Word was made flesh and _taber- 
nacled among us, and we beheld his glory’’ 
(John 1: 14). This is temple imagery. ‘‘ Taber- 
nacled”’ (éoy#vwser) is the word used in Scripture 
for the dwelling of God with men ; and the temple 
is God’s dwelling-place. The ‘‘glory’’ harmon- 
izes with the same idea. As, the Shechinah cloud 
rested above the mercy-seat, the symbol and sign 
of God's presence, so from the Holy of Holies of 
our blessed Lord’s heart did the glory of God 
shine forth, ‘‘the glory as of the only begotten 
of the Father, full of grace and truth,’’ certify- 
ing him to be the veritable temple of the Most 
High. 

After his ascension and the sending down of 
the Spirit, the church takes the name her Lord 
had borne before ; she is the temple of God, and 
the only temple which he has on earth during the 
present dispensation. ‘‘ Know ye not that ye are 
the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God 
dwelleth in you?’’ asks the apostle. This he 


32 THE MINISTRY OF THE SPIRIT 


speaks to the church in its corporate capacity. 
‘‘A holy temple in the Lord, in whom ye also are 
builded together for a habitation of God through 
the Spirit,’’ is the sublime description in the 
Epistle to the Ephesians. It is enough that we 
now emphasize the fact that the same language is 
here applied to the church which Christ applies to 
himself. As with the Head, so with the mystical 
body ; each is indwelt by the Holy Spirit, and 
thus is God in some sense incarnated in both ; 
and for the same reason. Christ was ‘‘the 
Image of the Invisible God’”’ ; and when he stood 
before men in the flesh he could say to them, 
‘‘He that hath seen me hath seen the Father.’’ 
Not 64therwise than through the incarnation, so 
far as we know, could the unknown God become 
known, and the unseen God become seen. So, 
after Christ had returned to the Father, and the 
world saw him no more, he sent the Paraclete to 
be incarnated in his mystical body, the church. 
As the Father revealed himself through the Son, 
so the Son by the Holy Spirit now reveals himself 
through the church ; as Christ was the image of 
the invisible God, so the church is appointed to be 
the image of the invisible Christ; and his mem- 
bers, when they are glorified with him, shall be the 
express image of his person. 

This then is the mystery and the glory of this 
dispensation ; not less true because mysterious ; 
not less practical because glorious. In an admir- 
able work on the Spirit, the distinction between 
the former and the present relation of the Spirit is 


THE ADVENT OF THE SPIRIT 33 


thus stated: ‘‘In the old dispensation the Holy 
Spirit wrought woz believers, but did not in his 
person dwell in believers and abide permanently 
in them. He appeared unto men; he did not 
incarnate himself in man. His action was in- 
termittent; he went and came like the dove 
which Noah sent forth from the ark, and which 
went to and fro, finding no rest; while in the 
new dispensation he dwells, he abides in the 
heart as the dove, his emblem, which John 
saw descending and alighting on the head of 
Jesus. Affianced of the soul, the Spirit went 
oft to see his betrothed, but was not yet one 
with her; the marriage was not consummated 
until the Pentecost, after the glorification of 
Jesus Christ.’”! 

3. A still more obvious reason why before the 
day of Pentecost it could be said that ‘‘the Holy 
Ghost was not yet,’’ is contained in the words, 
‘* Because that Jesus was not yet glorified.’ In 
the order of the unfolding ages we see each of the 
persons of the Godhead in turn exercising an 
earthly ministry and dealing with man in the work 
of redemption. Under the law, God the Father 
comes down to earth and speaks to men from the 
cloud of Sinai and from the glory above the 
mercy-seat ; under grace, God the Son is in the 
world, teaching, suffering, dying, and rising 
again; under the dispensation of election and 
out-gathering now going on, the Holy Spirit is 
here carrying on the work of renewing and sanc- 


'« The Work of the Holy Spirit in Man,”’ by Pastor Tophel, p. 32. 
3 


34 THE MINISTRY OF THE SPIRIT 


tifying the church, which is the body of Christ. 
There is a necessary succession in these Divine 
ministries, both in time and in character. In the 
days of Moses it might have been said: ‘‘ Christ 
is not yet,’’ because the economy of God-Jehovah 
was not completed. The law must first be given, 
with its sacrifices and types and ceremonies and 
shadows ; man must be put on trial under the law, 
till the appointed time of his schooling should be 
completed. Z/ew must Christ come to fulfill all 
types and terminate all sacrifices in himself; to 
do for us ‘‘what the law could not do in that it 
was weak through the flesh,’’ and to become 
‘‘the end of the law for righteousness to every one 
that believeth.’ When in turn Christ had com- 
pleted his redemption-work by dying on the cross 
for our sins, and rising again from the dead for 
our justification, and had taken his place at 
God's right hand for perpetual intercession, 
then the Holy Ghost came down to com- 
municate and realize to the church the finished 
work of Christ. In a word, as God the Son 
fulfills to men the work of God the Father, so 
God the Holy Ghost realizes to human hearts 
the work of God the Son. 

There is a holy deference, if we may so say, 
between the Persons of the Trinity in regard te 
their respective ministries. When Christ was in 
office on earth, the Father commends us to him, 
speaking from heaven and saying: ‘‘ This is my 
beloved Son, hear ye him’’ ; when the Holy Ghost 
had entered upon his earthly office, Christ com- 


THE ADVENT OF THE SPIRIT 35 


mends us to him, speaking again from heaven 
with sevenfold reiteration, saying: ‘‘ He that hath 
an ear, let him hear what ¢he Sfirit saith unto the 
churches.’’! As each Person refers us to the 
teaching of the other, so in like manner does each 
in turn consummate the ministry of the other. 
Christ’s words and works were not his own, but 
his Father's: ‘* The words which J speak unto 
you I speak not of myself, but the Father that 
dwelleth in me he doeth the works.’’2 The 
Spirit's teaching and communications are not 
his own, but Christ’s: ‘‘ Howbeit when he the 
Spirit of truth is come, he will guide you into 
all truth; for he shall not speak of himself; but 
whatsoever he shall hear that shall he Speak , 
and he will show you things to come.’’ «4 
shall glorify me; for he shall receive of mine 
and show tt unto you.” 

This order in the ministries of the Persons of 
the Godhead is so fixed and eternal that we find it 
distinctly foreshadowed even in the typical teaching 
of the Old Testament. Many speak slightingly 
of the types, but they are as accurate as mathe- 
matics; they fix the sequence of events in 
redemption as rigidly as the order of sunrise and 
noontide is fixed in the heavens. Nowhere in 
tabernacle or in temple, shall we ever find the 
laver placed before the altar. The altar is Cal- 
vary and the laver is Pentecost ; one stands for 
the sacrificial blood, the other for the sanctifying 
Spirit. If any high priest were ignorantly to 


1 See epistles to the seven churches: Rev.2:11, 2 John 14: 10 


36 THE MINISTRY OF THE SPIRIT 


approach the brazen laver without first having 
come to the brazen altar, we might expect a 
rebuking voice to be heard from heaven: ‘‘ Not 
yet the washing of water’’ ; and such a saying 
would signify exactly the same as: ‘‘ Not yet the 
Holy Ghost.”’ 

Again, when the leper was to be cleansed, 
observe that the blood was to be put upon the tip 
of his right ear, the thumb of his right hand, and 
the great toe of his right foot ; and then the oil 
was to be put upon the right ear, the right thumb, 
and the right foot—¢he oz/ upon the blood of the 
trespass-offering (Lev. 14). Never, we venture to 
say, in all the manifold repetitions of this divine 
ceremony, was this order once inverted, so that 
the oil was first applied, and then the blood ; 
which means, interpreting type into antitype, that 
it was impossible that Pentecost could have pre- 
ceded Calvary, or that the outpouring of the Spirit 
should have anticipated the shedding of the blood. 

Then let us reflect, that not only the order of 
these two great events of redemption was fixed 
from the beginning, but their dates were marked in 
the calendar of typical time. The slaying of the 
paschal lamb told to generation after generation, 
though they knew it not, the day of the year and 
week on which Christ. our Passover should be 
sacrificed for us. The presentation of the wave 
sheaf before the Lord, ‘‘ 0x the morrow after the 
Sabbath’’ ' had for long centuries fixed the time 
of our Lord’s resurrection on the first day of the 


1 Lev. 23 : 11-16. 


THE ADVENT OF THE SPIRIT 37 


week. And the command to ‘count from the 
morrow after the Sabbath, from the day that ye 
brought the sheaf of the wave offering, seven Sab- 
baths,’’ * determined the day of Pentecost as the 
time of the descent of the Spirit. We sometimes 
think of the disciples waiting for an indefinite 
period in that upper room for the fulfillment of the 
promise of the Father; but the time had been 
fixed not only with God in eternity, but in the 
calendar of the Hebrew ritual upon earth. They 
tarried in prayer for ten days, simply because 
after the forty days of the Lord’s sojourn on earth 
subsequent to his resurrection, ten days remained 
of the ‘‘seven Sabbaths ’’ period. 

To sum up what we are saying : The Spirit of 
God is the successor of the Son of God in his 
official ministry on earth. Until Christ's earthly 
work for his church had been finished, the Spirit's 
work in this world could not properly begin. The 
office of the Holy Ghost is to communicate Christ 
to us—Christ in his entireness. However per- 
fectly the photographer’s plate has been prepared, 
there can be no picture until his subject steps into 
his place and stands before him. Our Saviour’s 
redemptive work was not completed when he died 
on the cross, or when he rose from the dead, or 
even when he ascended from the brow of Olivet. 
Not until he sat down in his Father's throne, 
summing up all his ministry in himself,— <I 
am he that liveth and was dead, and behold I am 
alive forevermore,’’—-did the full Christ stand 


1 Lev. 23 : 11-16. 


38 THE MINISERY (OF THE “SPIRE 


ready to be communicated to his church.!_ By the 
first Adam's sin, God’s communion with man 
through the Holy Ghost was broken, and their 
union ruptured. When the second Adam came 
up from his cross and resurrection, and took his 
place at God’s right hand, there was a restoration 
of this broken fellowship. Very beautiful are the 
words cf our risen Lord as bearing on this point : 
‘‘T ascend to my Father and your Father, to my 
God and your God.’’2 The place which the 
divine Son had won for himself in the Father's 
heart, he had won for us also. All of acceptance 
and standing and privilege which was now his, was 
ours too, by redemptive right; and the Holy 
Ghost is sent down to confirm and realize to us 
what he had won for us. Without the expiatory 
work of Christ for us, the sanctifying work of the 
Spirit in us were impossible ; and on the other 
hand, without the work of the Spirit within us, the 
work of Christ for us were without avail. 

‘“And when the day of Pentecost was fully 


1“ Christ having reached his goal, and not till then, bequeathes 
to his followers the graces that invested his earthly course; the 
ascending Elijah leaves his mantle behind him. It is only an 
extension of the same principle, that the declared office of the 
Holy Spirit being to complete the image of Christ in every faith- 
ful follower by effecting inthis world a spiritual death and resur- 
rection,—a point attested in every epistle,—the image could not 
be stamped until the reality had been wholly accomplished; the 
Divine Artist could not fitly descend to make the copy before 
the entire original had been provided.’’—Archer Butler. 

2 John 20: 17, “ Because though he and the Father are one, 
and the Father his Father by the propriety of nature, to us God 
became a Father through the Son, not by right of nature, but by | 
grace.”’—Ambrose, 


THE ADVENT OF THE SPIRIT 39 


come.’’ What these words mean historically, 
typically, and doctrinally, we are now prepared 
to see. The true wave sheaf had been presented 
in the temple on high. Christ the first-fruits, 
brought from the grave on ‘‘the morrow after the 
Sabbath,’’ or the first day of the week, now stands 
before God accepted on our behalf; the seven 
Sabbaths from the resurrection day have been 
counted, and Pentecost has come. Then sud- 
denly, to those who were ‘‘all of one accord in 
one place,’’ ‘‘there came a sound from heaven as 
of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the 
house where they were sitting, and there appeared 
unto them cloven tongues, like as of fire, and sat 
upon each of them, and they were all filled with the 
_ Holy Ghost.’’ As the manger of Bethlehem was 
the cradle of the Son of God, so was the upper 
room the cradle of the Spirit of God ; as the advent 
of ‘‘the Holy Child’’ was a testimony that God 
had ‘‘visited and redeemed his people,’’ so was 
the coming of the Holy Ghost. The fact that the 
Comforter is here, is proof that the Advocate is 
there in the presence of the Father. Boldly Peter 
and the other apostles now confront the rulers 
with their testimony, ‘‘ Whom ye slew and hanged 
onatree . . . Him hath God exalted with his 
right hand to bea prince and a Saviour, to give 
repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins; and 
we are his witnesses of these things; and so 
also ts the Holy Ghost, whom God hath given to 
them that obey him.’’ As the sound of the golden 
bells upon the high priest’s garments within the 


40 THE MINISTRY OF THE SPIRIT 


Holiest gave evidence that he was alive, so the 
sound of the Holy Ghost, proceeding from heaven 
and heard in that upper chamber, was an incon- 
testable witness that the great High Priest whom 
they had just seen passing through the cloud-cur- 
tain, entering within the veil, was still living for 
them in the presence of the Father. Thus has 
the ‘‘dies natalis,’’ the birthday of the Holy 
Spirit, come ; and the events of his earthly mis- 
sion will now be considered in their order. 


HI 
THE NAMING OF THE SPIRIT 


*« The name Paraclete is applied to Christ as well as 
to the Spirit ; and properly : For it is the common office 
of each to console and encourage us and to preserve us 
by their defense. Christ was their [the disciples’] patron 
so longas he lived in the world ; he then committed them 
to the guidance and protection of the Spirit. If any one 
asks us whether we are not under the guidance of Christ, 
the answer is easy: Christ is a perpetual guardian, but 
not visibly. As long as he walked on the earth he 
appeared openly as their guardian : now he preserves us 
by his Spirit. He calls the Spirit ‘another Comforter,’ 
in view of the distinction which we observe in the bless- 
ings proceeding from each.” —/John Calvin, 

42 


bit 
THE NAMING OF THE SPIRIT 
before he was conceived in the womb : 


4} ‘‘Thou shalt call his name Jesus, for 
he shall save his people from their sins.’’ Thus 


he came, not to receive a name, but to fulfill a 
name already predetermined for him. In like 
manner was the Holy Ghost named by our Lord 
before his advent into the world: ‘‘ But when the 
Paraclete is come, whom I will send unto you 
from the Father’’ (John 15: 26). This designa- 
tion of the Holy Spirit here occurs for the first 
time—a new name for the new ministry upon 
which he is now about to enter. The reader will 
find in almost any critical commentary discussions 
of the meaning of the word, and of the question 
of its right translation, whether by ‘‘ Comforter,”’ 
or ‘‘Advocate,’’ or ‘‘Teacher,’’ or ‘‘ Helper.’ 
But the question cannot be fully settled by an 
appeal to classical or patristic Greek, for the rea- 
son, we believe, that it is a divinely given name 
whose real significance must be made manifest in 


the actual life and history of the Spirit. The name 
43 


’ ’ 


44 THE MINISTRY OF THE SPIRIT 
i 


is the person himself, and only as we know the 
person can we interpret his name. Why attempt 
then to translate this word any more than we do the 
name of Jesus? We might well transfer it into our 
English version, leaving the history of the church 
from the Acts of the Apostles to the experience of 
the latest saint to fill into it the great significance 
which it was intended to contain. Certain it is 
that the language of the Holy Ghost can never be 
fully understood by an appeal to the lexicon. The 
heart of the church is the best dictionary of the 
Spirit. While all the before-mentioned synonyms 
are correct, neither one is adequate, nor are all 
together sufficient to bring out the full significance 
of this great name, ‘‘ The Paraclete.’’ 

Let us consider, however, how much is sug- 
gested by the literal meaning of this word, ‘the 
Paractetos,’’ and by all that our Lord Says con- 
cerning him in his last discourse. ‘To call to 
one’s aid,’’ is the meaning of the verb, Tapayarée, 
from which the name is derived. Very beautiful 
therefore is the word in its application to the disci- 
ples of Christ at the time when the Spirit was 
given. They had lost the visible presence of their 
Lord. The sorrow of his removal from them 
through the cross and the sepulchre had after 
three days been turned into joy by his resurrec- 
tion. But now another separation had come, in 
his departure to the Father after the cloud had 
received him out of sight. In this last and longer 
bereavement, what should they do? Their beloved 
Master had told them beforehand what to do. 


THE NAMING OF THE SPIRIT 45 


They were to call upon the Father to send them 
One to fill the vacant place, and he who should be 
sent would be the ‘‘ Paraclete,’’ the ‘‘one called 
to their help.’’ ! 

But what deep questionings must have arisen 
in their hearts as they heard the Saviour’s prom- 
ise: ‘‘If I go not away the Paraclete will not come 
unto you; but if I depart I will send him unto 
you.’’ Did they begin to ask whether the mys- 
terious comer would be a ‘‘person’’? Impossi- 
ble to imagine. For he was to take the place of 
that greatest of persons; to do for them even 
greater things than he had done; and to lead 
them into even larger knowledge than he had 
imparted. The discussion of the personality of 
the Holy Ghost is so unnatural in the light of 
Christ’s last discourse that we studiously avoid it. 
Let us treat the question, therefore, from the point 
of view of Christ’s own words, and try to put our- 
selves under the impression which they make upon 
us. To state the matter as simply and familiarly 
as possible: Jesus is about to vacate his office on 
earth as teacher and prophet ; but before doing so 
he would introduce us to his successor. As in a 
complex problem we seek to determine an unknown 
quantity by the known, so in this paschal discourse 
Jesus aims to make us acquainted with the mys- 
terious, invisible coming personage whom he 
names the ‘‘ Paraclete’’ by comparing him with 


1 The word TapakAgTwp is used in the Septuagint (Job 16: 2) 
with the meaning of “‘ Comforter,” and the term TapakAytog 
occurs in the Talmud, signifying “‘ /uterpreter.”” 


46 THE MINISTRY OF THE SPIRIT 


himself, the known and the visible one. Collat- 
ing his comparisons we may find in them several 
groups of seeming contradictions, and just such 
contradictions as we should expect if this comer is 
indeed a person of the Godhead. Of the coming 
Paraclete then we find these intimations.! 

1. He is another, yet the same: ‘And I will 
pray the Father and he shall give you another 
Comforter’’ (John 14: 16). By the use of this 
expression ‘‘another’’ our Lord distinguishes the 
Paraclete from himself, but he also puts him on 
the same plane with himself. For there is no 
parity or even comparison between a person and 
an influence. If the promised visitor were to be 
only an impersonal emanation from God, it would 
seem impossible that our Lord should have so 
co-ordinated him with himself as to say: ‘I go 
to be an Advocate for you in heaven (1 John 2: 1), 
and I send another to be an Advocate for you on 
earth.’ 

But if Christ thus distinguishes the Comforter 
from himself, he also identifies him with himself: 
‘I will not leave you orphans: J w// come to 
you’’ (John 14: 18). By common consent this 
promise refers to the advent of the Spirit, for so 
thé connection plainly indicates. And yet almost 


1 The most obvious reason for concluding that the Holy Spirit is 
a person is that he performs actions and stands in relations which 
belong only to a person, e.g.; He speaks (Acts 1: 16); he works 
miracles (Acts 2:4; 8:39); he sets ministers over churches 
(Acts 20: 28); he commands and Jorbids (Acts 8: 20nu irs Tai 
13:2; 16:6, 7); he prays for us (Rom. 8: 26); he witnesses 
(Rom. 8 : 16); he can be grieved (Eph. 4: 30); hecan be 
blasphemed (Mark 3 : 29); he can be resisted (Acts 7 3.52, etc.). 


THE NAMING OF THE SPIRIT 47 


in the same breath he says: ‘The Comforter 
whom I will send unto you”’ (John 14: 26). 
Thus our Lord makes the same event to be at 
once his coming and his sending; and he speaks 
of the Spirit now as his own presence, and now as 
his substitute during his absence. So what must 
we conclude but that the Paraclete is Christ’s 
other self, a third Person in that blessed Trinity 
of which he is the second. 

2. The Paraclete is subordinate yet superior 
in his ministry tothe church. ‘For he shall not 
speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear 
that shall he speak. He shall glorify me; for he 
shall receive of mine and show it unto you”’ 
(John 16 : 13). 

Well may we mark the holy deference between 
the persons of the Trinity which is here pointed 
out. Each receives from another what he com- 
municates, and each magnifies another in his 
praises. As Bengel concisely states it: ‘The 
Son glorifies the Father; the Spirit glorifies the 
Son.’’ What then is the office of the Holy Ghost, 
so far as we can interpret it, but that of communi- 
cating and applying the work of Christ to human 
hearts? If he convinces of sin it is by exhibiting 
the gracious redemptive work of the Saviour and 
showing men their guilt in not believing on him, 
If he witnesses to the penitent of his acceptance it 
is by testifying of the atoning blood of Jesus in 
which that acceptance is grounded ; if he regen- 
erates and sanctifies the heart it is by communi- 
cating to it the life of the risen Lord. Christ is 


48 THE MINISTRY OF THE SPIRIT 


‘fall’ in himself, and through the Spirit ‘‘in all’”’ 
those whom the Spiritrenews. This reverent sub- 
jection of the earthly Comforter to the heavenly 
Christ contains a deep lesson for those who are 
indwelt by the Spirit’ and makes them rejoice 
evermore to be witnesses rather than originators. 

With this subordination of the Holy Spirit 
to Christ, how is it yet true that such a great 
advantage was to accrue to the church by the 
departure of the Saviour and the consequent 
advent of the Spirit to take his place? That it 
would be so is what is plainly affirmed in the 
following text: ‘‘ Nevertheless I tell you the truth. 
It is expedient for you that I go away: forif I go not 
away the Comforter will not come unto you; but 
if I depart I will send him unto you’’ (John 
16:7). If the Spirit is simply the measure of the 
Son, his sole work being to communicate the 
work of the Son, what gain could there be in the 
departure of the one in order to the coming of the 
other? Would it not be simply the exchange of 
Christ for Christ ?—his visible presence for his 
invisible ? 

To us the answer of this question is most 
obvious.. It was not the earthly Christ whom the 
Holy Ghost was to. communicate to the church, 
but the heavenly Christ,—the Christ re-invested 
with his eternal power, re-clothed with the glory 
which he had with the Father before the world 


1If the Holy Spirit may not speak of himself as preacher, how 
canst thou draw thy preaching out of thyself—out of thine head or 
even out of thine heart.—Pastor Gossner. 


THE NAMING OF THE SPIRIT 49 


was, and re-endowed with the infinite treasures of 
grace which he had purchased by his death on the 
cross. It is as though—to use a very inadequate 
illustration—a beloved father were to say to his 
family : ‘‘ My children, I have provided well for 
your needs ; but your condition is one of poverty 
compared with what it may become. By the 
death of a kinsman in my native country I have 
become heir to an immense estate. If you will 
only submit cheerfully to my leaving you and 
crossing the sea, and entering into my inheritance, 
I will send you back a thousand times more than 
you could have by my remaining with you.’’ 
Only in the instance we are considering, Christ 
is the ‘‘testator’’ as well as the heir. By his 
death the inheritance becomes available, and 
when he had ascended into heaven he sent down 
the Holy Spirit to distribute the estate among 
those who were joint heirs with him. What this 
estate is, may be best summarized in two beauti- 
ful expressions of frequent recurrence in the 
epistles of Paul, ‘‘The riches of his grace’’ 
(Epiwin7);Mands *sThesriches)’of *hissglory:"’ 
(Eph. 3: 16). Onthe cross ‘‘the riches of his 
grace’’ was secured to us in the forgiveness of 
sins; on the throne ‘‘the riches of his glory’’ 
was secured to us in our being strengthened with 
all might by his Spirit in the inner man ; in the 
indwelling of Christ in our hearts by faith, and in 
our infilling with all the fullness of God. The 
divine wealth only becomes completely available ~ 
on the death, resurrection, and ascension of our 
a 


50 THE MINISTRY OF THE SPIRIT 


Lord ; so that the Holy Spirit, the divine Con- 
veyancer, had not the full inheritance to convey 
till Jesus was glorified. 

Observe, therefore, in the valedictory discourse 
of our Lord, the frequent recurrence of the words : 
‘‘Because I go to the Father,’ one of the sayings 
which greatly perplexed his disciples. In the light 
of all which Jesus says in this connection, let us 
see if its meaning may not be clear to us. ‘If ye 
loved me ye would rejoice because I go unto the 
Father ; for the Father is greater than I”’ (John 
14 : 28), he says in the same connection. Wecan- 
not here enter into the deep question of the henosts, 
or self-emptying of the Son of God in his incarna- 
tion. It is enough that we follow the plain teach- 
ing of the Scripture, that though ‘‘ being in the 
form of God, he counted it not a thing to be 
grasped to be on an equality with God : but emptied 
himself, taking the form of a servant’’ (Phil eis 
6, 7, R. V.). What now does his going to the 
Father signify but a refilling with that of which he 
had been emptied, ora resumption of his co-equal- 
ity with God? The greater blessing which he 
could confer upon his church by his departure 
seems to lie in the fact of the greater power and 
glory into which he would enter by his enthrone- 
ment at God’s right hand. As Luther pointedly 
puts it: ‘‘ Therefore do I go, he saith, where I 
shall be greater than I now am, that is, to the 
Father, and it is better that I shall pass out of this 
obscurity and weakness into the power ana glory 
in which the Father is.’’ Inthe light of this inter- 


THE NAMING OF THE SPIRIT?’ 51 


pretation the meaning of our Lord’s words above 
quoted does not seem difficult. The Paraclete) 
was to communicate Christ to his church,—his / 
life, his power, his riches, his glory. In his exal-| 
tation all these were to be very greatly increased. 
‘‘All things that the Father hath are mine”’ 
(John 16: 15), he says. And though he had for 
a time voluntarily disinherited himself of his 
heavenly possessions, he is now to be repossessed 
of them. ‘‘ Therefore said I, that he shall take 
of mine and shall show it unto you’’ (16: 15). 
Christ at God’s right hand will have more to_ give 
than while on earth; therefore the church will 
have more to receive through the Paraclete than 
through the visible Christ. What obvious signifi- 
cance then do the following sayings from this 
farewell sermon of Jesus have: ‘‘ Verily, verily, I 
say unto you, He that believeth on me the works 
that I do shall he do also; greater works than 
these shall he do; because I go unto the Father”’ 
(John 14: 12). The earthly Christ is equal only 
to himself thus conditioned ; and if the Holy Spirit 
shall communicate his power to his disciples, they 
will do the same works that he does. But the 
heavenly Christ is co-equal with the Father, there- 
fore when he shall ascend to the Father, and the 
Spirit shall take of his and communicate to his 
church, it will do greater works than these. The 
stream of life, in other words, will have greater 
power because of the higher source from which it 
proceeds. Very deep are the mysteries here con- 
sidered, and we can only speak of them in the 


52 THE MINISTRY OF THE SPIRIT 


light which we get by comparing Scripture with 
Scripture. Did the risen Christ breathe on his 
disciples and say to them: “ Receive ye the Holy 
Ghost’’ ?! «*Tt is enough, Lord, that we have 
received the Spirit from thee,’’ they might well 
have said. Yet it was not enough for him to give ; 
for looking on to the day of his enthronement, he 
says: ‘‘ But when the Paraclete is come, whom I 
will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit 
of truth which proceedeth from the F ather, he shal? 
testify of me’’ (John 15: 26). When Jesus hath 
ascended ‘‘on high,’’ then can the -Holy Ghost 
communicate ‘‘ the power from on high.’’ There- 
fore it is expedient that he go away. 

As with the power which Christ was to impart 
to his church through the Paraclete, so with the 
righteousness which he was both to impute and to 
impart; its highest source must be found in 
heaven : ‘‘ And when he, the Comforter, is come, 
he will convince the world of righteousness ; 

of righteousness decause J go tony father, 
and ye see me no more’’ (John 16: 8~10). We 
may say truly that the righteousness of Christ was 
not completely finished and authenticated till he 
sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high. 
By his death he perfectly satisfied the claims of a 
violated law, but this fact was not attested until 
the grave gave back the certificate of discharge in 
his released and risen body. By his resurrection 


1 Let it be observed that in this communication of the risen 
Christ it is not said, “ Receive ye the Holy Ghost’’—the 
article being significantly omitted—AdGere IIvetua aro 
(John 20; 25), 


THE NAMING OF THE SPIRIT 53 


he was ‘‘ declared to be the Son of God in power, 
according to the Spirit of holiness’’ (Rom. 1 : 4). 
But the fact was not fully verified till God had 
“set him at his own right hand in the heavenly 
places, far above all principality, and power, and 
might, and dominion, and every name that is 
named "’ (Eph. 1: 20, 21). Now in his consum- 
mated glory he is prepared to be ‘‘ made wisdom, 
and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemp- 
tion ’’ to his people. He who had been ‘‘ manifest 
in the flesh’’ that he might be made sin for us, 
was now ‘“‘justified in the Spirit’’ and ‘received 
up into glory,’’ that he might be made righteous- 
ness to us, and that ‘‘we might be made the 
righteousness of God in him.’’ Christ’s corona- 
tion, in a word, is the indispensable condition to 
our justification. Till he who was made a curse 
for us is crowned with glory and honor we cannot 
be assured of our acceptance with the Father.!. How 
deep the current of thought which flows through this 
narrow channel—‘‘ Because I go to the Father.”’ 
3. The Paraclete teaches only the things of 
Christ ; yet teaches more than Christ taught: ‘I 
have yet many things to say unto you, but ye can- 
not bear them now. Howbeit when he the Spirit 
of truth is come, he will guide you into all the 
truth ’’ (John 16:12, 13). It is as though he had 
said: ‘‘I have brought you a little way in-the 
knowledge of my doctrine ; he shall bring you all 


1 How righteous must he be, who will go to the Father from 
the cross and the grave! Thus will the Holy Spirit convince 
the world that he is a righteous man, and truly righteous for 
man.—foos. 


54 THE MINISTRY OF. THE SPIRIT 


éhe wav.'' One reason for this saying seems 


plain: The teaching of Jesus during his earthly 
ministry waited to be illumined by a light not 
risen—the light of the cross, the light of the 
sepulchre, the light of the ascension. Therefore 
until these events had come to pass, Christian 
doctrine was undeveloped, and could not be fully 
communicated to the disciples of Christ. But 
this is not all.’ The ‘because I go to the 
Father’’ still gives the key to our Lord’s mean- 
ing. ‘*‘ But what things soever he shall hear, 
these shall he speak, and he shall declare unto 
you things to come’’ (John 16: 13, R. V.). Very 
wonderful is this hint of the mutual converse of. 
the Godhead, so that the Paraclete is described as 
listening while he leads, as having an ear in 
heaven attentive to the converse of the Father and 
the glorified Son, while he extends an unseen 
guidance to the flock on earth, communicating to 
them what he has heard from the Father and the 
Son. And we may reverently ask, Has not the 
glorified Christ more of knowledge and revelation 
to communicate than he had in the days of his 
humiliation? Of ‘‘the things to come’’ has he 
not secrets to impart which hitherto may have 
been hidden in the counsels of the Father? To 
take a single illustration from the words of Christ. 
Speaking of his second advent, he says: ‘‘ But 
of that day or that hour knoweth no one, not 
even the angels in heaven, neither the Son, but 
the Father ’’ (Mark 13: 327). It is best that we 


1“ Neither the Son’’; “It is more than neither ; it is not yet 
the Son,’’ says Morrison the commentator. 


THE NAMING OF THE SPIRIT 55 


should interpret these words frankly, and instead 
of saying, with some, that he did not know in the 
sense that he was not permitted to disclose, admit 
it possible that while in his humiliation and under 
the veil of his incarnation, this secret was hidden 
from his eyes. 

But is it not presumptuous for us to reason, that 
therefore he does not zow know the day of his 
coming? How constantly is that text quoted asa 
decisive and final prohibition of all inquiry into 
the proximate time of our Lord’s return in glory. 
But they who so use this saying simply remand us 
to the childhood of the church, to the spiritual 
nonage of the ante-Pentecostal days. Have we 
forgotten that since our Lord ascended to the 
Father he has given us a further revelation, that 
wondrous book of the Apocalypse, which opens 
and closes with a beatitude upon those who read 
and faithfully keep the words of this prophecy ? 
And one characteristic feature of this book is its 
chronological predictions concerning the time of . 
the end, its mystical dates, which have led many 
sober searchers of the word of God to inquire 
diligently ‘‘ what and what manner of time’’ the / 
Spirit did signify in giving us these way-marks in 
the wilderness. This being so, we may ask: If 
we are not irreverent in concluding with many 
devout expositors that our Saviour meant what he 
said in declaring that he did ‘not yet’’ know 
the time of his advent, are we presumptuous in 
taking literally the opening words of the Apoca:| 
lypse?: ‘‘ The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which . 


56 THE MINISTRY OF ‘THE SPIRIT 


God gave unto him, to show unto his servants the 
things which must shortly come to pass.’’ It was 
because of his going unto the Father that greater 
works and greater riches were to attend the church 
after Pentecost. Why may we not assign to the 
same cause also the fuller revelation of the future 
and the leading into completer truth concerning 
the blessed hope of the church? In other words, 
if we may think of Christ as entering into larger 
revelation as he returns to the glory which he had 
with the Father must we not think of larger com- 
munications of truth by the blessed Paraclete ? 
Have we not learned something of the nature 
and offices of the Spirit by this study of his new 
name, and of all that the departing Lord says in 
the wondrous discourse wherein he introduces him 
to his disciples? At least the study should enable 
us to distinguish two inspired terms which have 
been needlessly confounded by not a few writers, 
viz.: the words ‘‘faracilete,’’ and ‘‘Parousia.”’ 
The latter word, which constantly occurs in Scrip- 
ture as describing our Lord’s second coming, has 
been applied in several learned works to the 
advent of the Holy Spirit ; and since Christ came 
in the person of the Spirit, it has been argued 
that the Redeemer’s promised advent in glory has 
already taken place. But this is to confuse terms 
whose use in Scripture marks them as clearly dis- 
tinct. Observe their difference : In the Paraclete, 
Christ comes spiritually and invisibly; in the 
Parousia, he comes bodily and gloriously. The 
advent of the Paraclete is really conditioned on 


THE NAMING OF THE SPIRIT. 57 


the Saviour’s personal departure from his people : 
‘Tf I go not away the Paraclete will not come to 
you’’ (John 16:7). The Parousia, on the other 
hand, is only realized in his personal return to his 
people: ‘‘ For what is our hope or joy or crown 
of rejoicing? Are not even ye in the fresence of 
our Lord Jesus Christ a¢ his coming ?’’ (1 Thess. 
2:19). The Paraclete attends the church in the 
days of her humiliation ; the Parousia introduces 
the church into the day of her glory. In the > 
Paraclete, Christ came to dwell with the church 
on earth: ‘‘I will not leave you orphans ; I will 
come to you’’ (John 14: 18). In the Parousia, 
Christ comes to take the church to dwell with 
himself in glory : ‘‘ I will come again and receive 
you unto myself ; that where I am there you may 
be also’’ (John 14 : 3). Christ prayed on behalf 
of his bereaved church for the coming of this 
Paraclete: ‘‘And I will pray the Father and he 
shall give you another Paraclete.’’ The Holy 
Spirit now prays with the pilgrim-church for the 
hastening of the Parousia. ‘‘And the Spirit and 
pe sbridensay, «Come! (Rev, 22°: 17). sThese 
two can only be understood in their mutual rela- 
tions. Christ, who gave the new name to the 
Holy Spirit, can best interpret that name to us by 
making us acquainted with himself. May that 
name be for us so real a symbol of personal pres- 
ence that while strangers and pilgrims in the 
earth we may walk evermore ‘‘in the Saraclests 
of the Holy Ghost’’ (Acts 9 : 31). 


IV 


Ambo! 
EMBODYING OF THE SPIRIT 


“But now the Holy Ghost is given more perfectly, 
for he is no longer present by his operation as of old, 
but is present with us so to speak, and converses with 
us in a substantial manner. For it was fitting that, as 
the Son had conversed with us in the body, the Spirit 
should also come among us in a bodily manner.’’— 
G eae LVazianzen, 


IV 


THE EMBODYING OF THE SPIRIT 

sass church, which is his body,’’ began 
(te oye: its history and development at Pente- 

Sen) «cost. Believers had been saved, and 
the influences of the Spirit had been manifested to 
men in all previous dispensations from Adam to 
Christ. But now an ecclesia, an outgathering, 
was to be made to constitute the mystical body of 
Christ, incorporated into him the Head and 
indwelt by him through the Holy Ghost. The 
definition which we sometimes hear, that a church 
is ‘‘a voluntary association of believers, united 
together for the purposes of worship and edifica- 
tion’’ is most inadequate, not to say incorrect. It 
is no more true than that hands and feet and eyes 
and ears are voluntarily united in the human body 
for the purposes of locomotion and work. Ae 
church is formed from within ; Christ present by 
the Holy Ghost, regenerating men by the sover- 
eign action of the Spirit, and organizing them into 
himself as the living center. The Head and the 
body are therefore one, and predestined to the 
same history of humiliation and glory. eas 

I 


62 THE MINISTRY OF THE SPIRIT 


they are one in fact, so are they one in name. 
He whom God anointed and filled with the Holy 
Ghost is called ‘‘the Christ,’’ and the church, 
which is his body and fullness, is also called ‘‘ the 
Christ.’’ ‘‘ For as the body is one, and hath many 
members, and all the members of that one body, 
being many, are one body, so also zs the Christ’’ 
(1 Cor. 12: 12). Here plainly and with won- 
drous honor the church is named 6 Xpiorés, com- 
menting upon which fact Bishop Andrews beauti- 
fully says: ‘‘Christ is both in heaven and on 
earth ; as he is called the Head of his church, he 
is in heaven ; but in respect of his body which is 
called Christ, he is on earth.’’ 

So soon as the Holy Ghost was sent down 
from heaven this great work of his embodying 
began, and it is to continue until the number of 
the elect shall be accomplished, or unto the end 
of the present dispensation. Christ, if we may 
say it reverently, became mystically a babe again 
on the day of Pentecost, and the hundred and 
twenty were his infantile body, as once more 
through the Holy Ghost he incarnated himself in 
his flesh. Now he is growing and increasing in 
his members, and so will he continue to do ‘till 
we all come in the unity of the faith and of the 
knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect man, 
unto the measure of the stature of fullness of 
Christ.’’ Then the Christ on earth will be taken 
up into visible union with the Christ in heaven, 
and the Head and the body be glorified together. 
Observe how the history of the church’s formation, 


THE EMBODYING OF THE SPIRIT 63 


as recorded in the Acts, harmonizes with the con- 
ception given above. The story of Pentecost cul- 
minates in the words, ‘‘and the same day there 
were added about three thousand souls ’’ (Acts 2: 
41). Added to whom? we naturally ask. And 
the King James translators have answered our 
question by inserting in italics ‘‘to them.’’ But 
not so speaks the Holy Ghost. And when, a few 
verses further on in the same chapter, we read: 
«« And the Lord added to the church daily such as 
should be saved,’’ we need to be reminded that 
the words ‘‘to the church’’ are spurious. All 
such glosses and interpolations have only tended 
to mar the sublime teaching of this first chapter of 
the Holy Spirit’s history. ‘‘ And believers were 
thenmoresadded “or thet Lora-” y(Acts -§ 26 314): 
‘‘ And much people were added uwxto the Lord’’ 
(Acts 11: 24). This is the language of inspira- 
tion—Not the mutual union of believers, but their 
divine co-uniting with Christ ; not voluntary asso- 
ciation of Christians, but their sovereign incorpo- 
ration into the Head and this incorporation effected 
by the Head through the Holy Ghost. 

If we ask concerning the way of admission into 
this divine ecclesta, the teaching of Scripture is 
explicit: ‘‘ For in one Spirit were we all baptized 
into one body’’ (1 Cor. 12: 13). The baptism in 
water marks the formal introduction of the believer 
into the church; but this is the symbol, not the 
substance. For observe the identity of form 
between the ritual and the spiritual. ‘I indeed 
baptize you in water,’’ . . . said John, ‘‘buthe 


64 THE MINISTRY OF THE SPIRIT 


that cometh after me . . . shall baptize you in. 
the Holy Ghost and in fire’’(Matt. 3: 11). Asin 
the one instance the disciple was submerged in 
the element of water, so in the other he was to be 
submerged in the element of the Spirit. And thus 
it was in actual historic fact. The upper room 
became the Spirit’s baptistery, if we may use the 
figure. His presence ‘‘ filled all the house where 
they were sitting,’’ and ‘‘they were all filled with 
the Holy Ghost.’’ The baptistery would never 
need to be re-filled, for Pentecost was once and 
for all, and the Spirit then came to abide in the 
church perpetually. But each believer throughout 
the age would need to be infilled with that Spirit 
which dwells in the body of Christ. In other 
words, it seems clear that the baptism of the 
Spirit was given once for the whole church, 
extending from Pentecost to Parousia. ‘‘ There 
is one Lord, one faith, one baptism ”’ (Epi ayeas 
As there is one body reaching through the entire 
dispensation, so there is ‘‘ one baptism ’’ for ‘that 
body given on the day of Pentecost. Thus if we 
rightly understand the meaning of Scripture it is 
true, beth as to time and as to fact, that ‘‘in one 
Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether 
Jews or Greeks, whether bond or free.’’ 

The typical foreshadowing, as seen in the 
church in the wilderness, is very suggestive at 
this point: ‘‘ Moreover, brethren, I would not 
that ye should be ignorant, how that all our 
fathers were under the cloud and all passed 
through the sea; and were all baptized unto 


THE EMBODYING OF THE SPIRIT 65 


Moses in the cloud and in the sea”’ (1 Cor. 10: 
1). Baptized zzto Moses by their passage through 
the sea, identified with him as their leader, and 
committed to him in corporate fellowship ; even 
so were they also baptized into Jehovah, who in 
the cloud of glory now took his place in the midst 
of the camp and tabernacled henceforth with 
them. The type is perfect as all inspired types 
are. The antitype first appears in Christ our 
Lord, baptized in water at the Jordan, and then 
baptized in the Holy Ghost which ‘‘ descended 
from heaven like a dove and abode upon him.”’ 
Then it recurred again in the waiting disciples, 
who besides the baptism of water, which had 
doubtless already been received, now were bap- 
tized ‘‘in the Holy Ghost and in fire.’’ Hence- 
forth they were in the divine element, as their 
fathers had been in the wilderness, ‘‘ not in the 
flesh but zz the Spirit’’ (Rom. 8: 9g); called ‘‘to 
live according to God zz the Spirit’’ (1 Peter 
4: 6); to ‘‘walk iz the Spirit’’ (Gal. 5: 25); 
‘‘ praying always with all prayer and supplication 
in the Spirit’’ (Eph. 6: 18). Ina word, on the 
day of Pentecost the entire body of Christ was 
baptized into the element and presence of the 
Holy Ghost as a permanent condition. And 
though one might object that the body as a 
whole was not yet in existence, we reply that 
neither was the complete church in existence 
when Christ died on Calvary, yet all believers 
are repeatedly said to have died with him. 


To change the figure of baptism for a moment 
5 


66 THE MINISTRY OF THE SPIRIT 


to another which is used synonymously, that of 
the anointing of the Spirit, we have in Exodus a 
beautiful typical illustration of our thought. At 
Aaron’s consecration the precious ointment was 
not only poured upon his head, but ran down in 
rich profusion upon his body and upon his priestly 
garments. This fact is taken up by the psalmist 
when he sings: ‘‘ Behold how good and pleasant 
it is for brethren to dwell together in unity. It 
is like the precious ointment upon the head 
that ran down upon the beard, even Aaron’s 
beard, that went down to the skirts of his 
garments ’’ (Ps. 133: 1, 2). Of our great High 
Priest we read: ‘How God anointed Jesus 
of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with 
power’’ (Acts lo: 38). But it was not for him- 
self alone but also for his brethren that he 
obtained this holy unction. He received that he 
might communicate. ‘*Upon whom thou shalt 
see the Spirit descending and remaining on him, 
the same is he that baptizeth in the Holy Ghost ”’ 
(John 1 : 33). And now we behold our Aaron, 
our great High Priest, who has passed through the 
heavens, Jesus the Son of God, standing in the 
holiest in heaven. ‘‘ Thou didst love righteous- 
ness and didst hate iniquity,’’ is the divine en- 
comium now passed upon him, ‘therefore God, 
thy God, anointed thee with the oil of gladness 
above thy fellows’’ (Heb. 1: 9). He, the Chriséos, 
the Anointed, stands above and for the Christot, 
his anointed brethren, and from him the Head, 
the unction of the Holy Ghost descended on the 


THE EMBODYING OF THE SPIRIT 67 


day of Pentecost. It was poured in rich profusion 
upon his mystical body. It has been flowing down 
ever since, and will continue to do so till the last 
member shall have been incorporated with him- 
self, and so anointed by the one Spirit into the 
one body, which is the church. 

It is true that in one instance subsequent to 
Pentecost the baptism in the Holy Ghost is spoken 
of. When the Spirit fell on the house of Corne- 
lius, Peter is reminded of the word of the Lord, 
how that he said: ‘‘John indeed baptized in 
water, but ye shali be baptized in the Holy Ghost’”’ 
(Acts 11 : 16). This was a great crisis in the his- 
tory of the church, the opening of the door of 
faith to the Gentiles, and it would seem that these 
new subjects of grace now came into participation 
of an already present Spirit. Yet Pentecost still 
appears to have been the age-baptism of the 
church. As Calvary was once for all, so was the 
visitation of the upper room. 

Consider now that, as through the Holy Ghost 
we become incorporated into the body of Christ, 
we are in the same way assimilated to the Head 
of that body, which is Christ. An unsanctified 
church dishonors the Lord, especially by its incon- 
gruity. A noble head, lofty-browed and intellec- 
tual, upon a deformed and stunted body, is a 
pitiable sight. What, to the angels and principal- 
ities who gaze evermore upon the face of Jesus, 
must be the sight of an unholy and misshapen 
church on earth, standing in that place of honor 
called ‘‘his body.’’ Photographing in a sentence 


68 THE MINISTRY OF THE SPIRIT 


the ecclesia of the earliest centuries, Professor 
Harnack says: ‘‘Originally the church was the 
(| heavenly bride of Christ and the abiding place of 


7 


ca 


’ 


\' the Holy Spirit.’ Let the reader consider how 
much is involved in this definition. The first and 
most sacred relation of the body is to the head. 
Watching for the return of the Bridegroom induces 
holiness of life and conduct in the bride ; and the 
supreme work of the Spirit is directed to this end, 

| that ‘‘ He may establish our hearts unblamable in 
holiness before God our Father, at the coming of 
our Lord Jesus Christ with all his saints’’ (1 
Thess. 3 : 13). In accomplishing this end he 
effects all other and subordinate ends. The glori- 
fied Christ manifests himself to man through his 
body. If there isa perfect correspondence between 
himself and his members, then there will be a true 
¥ manifestation of himself to the world.1. Therefore 
“does the Spirit abide in the body, that the body 
may be ‘‘inChristed,’’ to use an old phrase of the 
mystics ; that is, indwelt by Christ and trans- 

_ figured into the likeness of Christ. Only thus, as 
‘‘a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy 
nation, a peculiar people,’’ can it ‘‘ shew forth the 
virtues of him who has called us out of darkness 
into his marvelous light.’’ And who is the Christ 
that is thus to be manifested? From the throne 


1“*The Holy Spirit not only dwells in the church as his 
habitations, but also uses her as the living organism whereby 
he moves and walks forth in the world, and speaks to the 
world and acts upon the world. He is the soul of the church 
which is Christ’s body.’’—Bishop Webs, The Presence and 
Office of the Spirit, p. 47. 


a re, Oh er 


THE EMBODYING OF THE SPIRIT 69 


he gives us his name: ‘‘I am he that liveth and 
was dead, and behold I am alive for evermore’’ 
(Rev. 1: 18). Christ in glory is not simply what 
he is, but what he was and what he is to be. ' As 
a tree gathers up into itself all the growths of 
former years, and contains them in its trunk, so 
Jesus on the throne is all that he was and is and is 
to be. In other words, his death is a perpetual 
fact as well as his life. 

And his church is predestined to be like him 
in this respect, since it not only heads up in him, 
as saith the apostle, that ye ‘‘may grow up into 
him in all things which is the Head, even Christ,’’ 
but also bodies itself forth from him, ‘‘ from whom 
the whole body, fitly joined together and com- 
pacted by that which every joint supplieth, . . 
maketh increase of the body’’ . . (Eph. 4 : 16). 
If the church will literally manifest Christ, then she’ 
must be both a living and a dying church. To 
this she is committed in the divinely given form 
of her baptism. ‘‘ Know ye not that so many of 
us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized 
into his death ; therefore we were buried with him 
by baptism into death, that like as Christ was 
raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, 
even so we also should walk in newness of life’’ 
(Rom. 6:3, 4). And the baptism of the Holy 
Ghost into which we have been brought is designed 
to accomplish inwardly and spiritually what the 
baptism of water foreshadows outwardly and typi- 
cally, viz., to reproduce in us the living and the 
dying of our Lord. 


70. THE MINISTRY OF THE SPIRIT 


First, the living. ‘‘For the law of the Spirit 
of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the 
law of sin and death”’ (Rom. 8: 2). That is, 
that which has been hitherto the actuating principle 
within us, viz., sin and death, is now to be met 
and mastered by another principle, the law of life, 
of which the Holy Spirit of God is the author and 
sustainer. As by our natural spirit we are con- 
nected with the first Adam, and made partakers 
of his fallen nature, so by the Holy Spirit we are 
now united with the second Adam, and made 


y partakers of his glorified nature. To vivify the 


body of Christ by maintaining its identity with the 
risen Head is, in a word, the unceasing work of 
the Holy Ghost. 

Secondly, the dying of our Lord in his mem- 
bers is to be constantly effected by the indwelling 
Spirit. The church, which is the fullness of him 
‘that filleth all in all,’’ completes in the world his 
crucifixion as well as his resurrection. This is 
certainly Paul’s profound thought, when he speaks 
of filling up ‘‘that which is behind of the afflic- 
tions of Christin my flesh, for his body’s sake, 
which' is: the church", (Col: 1 24). “inwother 
words, the church, as the complement of her Lord, 


ve must have a life experience and a death experi- 


ence running parallel. 

It is remarkable how exact is this figure of the 
body, which is employed to symbolize the church. 
In the human system life and death are constantlx 
working together. A certain amount of tissue 
must die every day and be cast out and buried, 


THE EMBODYING OF THE SPIRIT 71 


and acertain amount of new tissue must also be 
created and nourished daily in the same body. 
Arrest the death-process, and it is just as certain 
to produce disorder as though you were to arrest 
the life-process. Literally is this true of the cor- 
porate body also. The church must die daily in 
fulfillment of the crucified life of her head, as well 
as live daily in the manifestation of his glorified 
life. This italicised sentence, which we take from 
a recent book, is worthy to be made a golden text 
for Christians : ‘‘ The Church ts Christian no more 
than as it is the organ of the continuous passion of 
Christ.’ To sympathize, in the literal sense of 
suffering with our sinning and lost humanity, is 
not only the duty of the church, but the absolutely 
essential condition to her true manifestation of her 
Lord. A self-indulgent church disfigures Christ ; 
an avaricious church bears false witness against 
Christ ; a worldly church betrays Christ, and gives 
him over once more to be mocked and reviled by 
his enemies. 

The resurrection of our Lord is prolonged in 
his body, as we all see plainly. Every regenera- 
tion is a pulse-beat of his throne-life. But too 
little do we recognize the fact that his crucifixion 
must be prolonged side by side with his resurrec- 
tion. ‘‘If any man will come after me let him 
deny himself and take up his cross daily and fol- 
low me.’”’ The church is called to live a glorified 
life in communion with her Head, and a crucified 
life in her contact with the world. And the Holy 
Spirit dwells evermore in the church to effect this 


72 THE MINISTRY OF THE SPIRIT 


twofold manifestation of Christ. ‘‘ But God be 
thanked, that ye have obeyed from the heart that 
pattern of doctrine to which ye were delivered,’’ 
writes the apostle (Rom. 6: 17). The pattern, as 
the context shows, is Christ dead and risen. If 
the church truly lives in the Spirit, he will keep 
her so plastic that she will obey this divine mold 
as the metal conforms to the die in which it is 
struck. If she yields to the sway of ‘‘the spirit 
that now worketh in the children of disobedience,’’ 
she will be stereotyped according to the fashion of 
the world, and they that look upon her will fail to 
see Christ in her. 


V 


‘BHE 
ENDUEMEND OF *THE {SPIRIT 


‘‘To the disciples, the baptism of the Spirit was 
very distinctly not his first bestowal for regeneration, 
but the definite communication of his presence in 
power of their glorified Lord. Just as there was a 
two-fold operation of the one Spirit in the Old and 
New Testaments, of which the state of the disciples 
before and after Pentecost was the striking illustration, 
so there may be, and in the great majority of Chris- 
tiens is, a corresponding difference of experience. . 
When once the distinct recognition of what the 
indwelling of the Spirit was meant to bring is brought 
home to the soul, and it is ready to give up all to be 
made partaker of it, the believer may ask and expect 
what may be termed a baptism of the Spirit. Praying 
to the Father in accordance to the two prayers in 
Ephesians, and coming to Jesus in the renewed sur- 
render of faith and obedience, he may receive such an 
inflow of the Holy Spirit as shall consciously lift him 
to a different level from the one on which he has 
hitherto lived.”’—ev. Andrew Murray. 

74 


V 
THE ENDUEMENT OF THE SPIRIT 


aij: have maintained in the previous chap- 
ter that the baptism of the Holy Ghost 
was given once for all on the day of 
Pentecost, when the Paraclete came in person to 
make his abode in the church. It does not follow 
therefore that every believer has received this bap- 
tism. God's gift is one thing ; our appropriation 
of that gift is quite another thing. Our relation to 
the second and to the third persons of the God- 
head is exactly parallel in this respect. ‘‘God so 
loved the world that he gave his only begotten 
Son’’ (John 3: 16). ‘‘ But as many as received 
him to them gave he the right to become the chil- 
dren of God, even to them that believe on his 
name’’ (John 1: 12). Here are the two sides of 
salvation, the divine and the human, which are 
absolutely co-essential. 

There is a doctrine somewhat in vogue, not 
inappropriately denominated redemption by incar- 
nation, which maintains that since God gave his 
Son to the world, all the world has the Son, con- 


sciously or unconsciously, and that therefore all 
75 


76 ' THE MINISTRY OF THE SPIRIT 


the world will be saved. It need not be said that 
a true evangelical teaching must reject this theory 
as utterly untenable, since it ignores the necessity 
of individual faith in Christ. But some orthodox 
writers have urged an almost identical view with 
respect to the Holy Ghost. They have contended 
that the enduement of the Spirit is ‘‘ not any 
special or more advanced experience, but simply 
the condition of every one who is a child of God”’ ; 
that ‘‘ believers converted after Pentecost, and liv- 
ing in other localities, are just as really endowed 
with the indwelling Spirit as those who actually 
partook of the Pentecostal blessing at Jerusalem.’’ ! 
On the contrary, it seems clear from the Scrip- 
tures that it is still the duty and privilege of 
believers to receive the Holy Spirit by a conscious, 
definite act of appropriating faith, just as they 
received Jesus Christ. We base this conclusion 
on several grounds. Presumably if the Paraclete 
is a person, coming down at a certain definite 
time to make his abode in the church, for guiding, 
teaching, and sanctifying the body of Christ, there 
is the same reason for our accepting him for his 
special ministry as for accepting the Lord Jesus 
for his special ministry. To say that in receiving 
Christ we necessarily received in the same act the 
gift of the Spirit, seems to confound what the 
Scriptures make distinct.2 For it is as sinners 
that we accept Christ for our justification, but it is 
1 Rev. E, Boys, “ Filled with the Spirit,’’ p. 87, 

2It is assumed by some that because those that walked with 


Christ of old received the baptism of the Holy Ghost and fire at 
Pentecost, more than eighteen hundred years ago, therefore all 


THE ENDUEMENT OF THE SPIRIT ry 


as sons that we accept the Spirit for our sanctifica- 
tion: ‘‘And because ye are sons, God hath sent 
forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying 
Abba, Father’’ (Gal. 4: 6). Thus, when Peter 
preached his first sermon to the multitude after the 
Spirit had been given, he said: ‘‘ Repent and be 
baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus 
Christ, for the remission of sins, and ye shall 
receive the gift of the Holy Ghost’’ (Acts 2: 38). 

This passage shows that logically and chrono- 
logically the gift of the Spirit is subsequent to 
repentance. Whether it follows as a necessary 
and inseparable consequence, as might seem, we 
shall consider later. Suffice that this point is clear, 
so clear that one of the most conservative as well 
as ablest writers on this subject, in commenting 
on this text in Acts, says: ‘‘ Therefore it is evi- 
dent that the reception of the Holy Ghost, as 
here spoken of, has nothing whatever to do with 
bringing men to believe and repent. It is a sub- 
_ sequent operation ; it is an additional and sepa- 
rate blessing ; it is a privilege founded on faith 
already actively working inthe heart. . . I donot 
mean to deny that the gift of the Holy Ghost may 
be practically on the same occasion, but never in 
the same moment. The reason is quite simple too. 


believers now have received the same. As well might the apostles, 
when first called, have concluded that because of his baptism the 
Spirit like a dove rested upon Christ, therefore they had equally 
received the same blessing. Surely the Spirit has been given and 
the work in Christ wrought for all; but to enter into possession, to 
be enlightened and made partakers of the Holy Ghost, there must 
be a personal application to the Lord, etc.—Andrew Jukes, ‘The 
New Man.’’ 


78 THE MINISTRY OF THE SPIRIT 


The gift of the Holy Ghost zs grounded on the fact 
that we are sons by faith in Christ, believers rest- 
ing on redemption in him. Plainly, therefore, it 
appears that the Spirit of God has already regen- 
erated us.”’ } 

Now, as we examine the Scriptures on this 
point, we shall see that we are required to approp- 
riate the Spirit as sons, in the same way that we 
appropriated Christ as sinners. ‘‘As many as 
received him, even to them that believe on his 
name,’’ is the condition of becoming sons, as we 
have already seen, receiving and believing being 
used as equivalent terms. Ina kind of foretaste 
of Pentecost, the risen Christ, standing in the 
midst of his disciples, ‘‘ breathed on them and 
said, Receive ye the Holy Ghost.’’ The verb is 
not passive, as our English version might lead us 
to suppose, but has here as generally an active 
signification just as in the familiar passage in 
Revelation : ‘‘ Whosoever will, let him fake the 
water of life freely.’’ Twice in the Epistle to the - 
Galatians the possession of the Holy Ghost is put 
on the same grounds of active appropriation 
through faith : ‘‘ Received ye the Spirit by the 
works of the law or by the hearing of faith?”’ 
(3:2). ‘‘ That ye might receive the promise of the 
Spirit through faith’’ (3:14). These texts seem to 
imply that just as there is a ‘‘ faith toward our Lord 
Jesus Christ’’ for salvation, there is a faith toward 
the Holy Ghost for power and consecration. 


1 William Kelly, ‘‘ Lectures on the New Testament Doctrine of 
the Holy Spirit,’’ p. 161. 


THE ENDUEMENT OF THE SPIRIT 79 


If we turn from New Testament teaching to 
New Testament example we are strongly con- 
firmed in this impression. We begin with that 
striking incident in the nineteenth chapter of Acts. 
Paul, having found certain disciples at Ephesus, 
said unto them: ‘‘ Did ye receive the Holy Ghost 
when ye believed? And they said unto him, 
Nay ; we did not so much as hear whether there 
is a Holy Ghost.’’ This passage seems decisive 
as showing that one may be a disciple without 
having entered into possession of the Spirit as 
God’s gift to believers. Some admit this, who yet 
deny any possible application of the incident to 
our own times, alleging that it is the miraculous 
gifts of the Spirit which are here under considera- 
tion, since, after recording that when Paul had 
laid his hands upon them and ‘‘ the ‘Holy Ghost 
came upon them,’’ it is added ‘‘ that they spake 
with tongues and prophesied.’’ All that need be 
said upon this point is simply that these Ephesian 
disciples, by the reception of the Spirit, came into 
the same condition with the upper-room disciples 
who received him some twenty years before, and 
of whom it is written that ‘‘ they were all filled with 
the Holy Ghost and began to speak with other 
tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.’’ In 
other words, these Ephesian disciples on receiving 
the Holy Ghost exhibited the traits of the Spirit 
common to the other disciples of the apostolic 
age. 

Whether those traits—the speaking of tongues 
and the working of miracles —were intended to be 


80 ‘THE MINISTRY OF THE SPIRIT 


perpetual or not we do not here discuss. But that 
the presence of the personal Holy Spirit in the 
church was intended to be perpetual there can be 
no question. And whatsoever relations believers 
held to that Spirit in the beginning they have a 
right to claim to-day. We must withhold our con- 
sent from the inconsistent exegesis which would 
make the water baptism of the apostolic times still 
rigidly binding, but would relegate the baptism in 
the Spirit to a bygone dispensation. We hold: 
indeed, that Pentecost was once for all, but equally- 
that the appropriation of the Spirit by believers is 
always for all, and that the shutting up of certain 
great blessings of the Holy Ghost within that ideal 
realm called ‘‘the apostolic age,’’ however con- 
venient it may be as an escape from fancied diffi- 
culties, may be the means of robbing believers of 
some of their most precious covenant rights.1_ Let 
us transfer this incident of the Ephesian Christians 
to our own times. We need not bring forward an 
imaginary case, for by the testimony of many 
experienced witnesses the same condition is con- 
stantly encountered. Not only individual Chris- 
tians, but whole communities of disciples are 
found who have been so imperfectly instructed 
that they have never known that there is a Holy 


1It is a great mistake into which some have fallen, to suppose 
that the resulis of Pentecost were chiefly miraculous and tem- 
porary. The effect of such a view is to keep spiritual influences 
out of sight; and it will be well ever to hold fast the assurance 
that a wide, deep, and perpetual spiritual blessing in the church is , 
that which above all things else was secured by the descent of the 
Spirit after Christ was glorified—Dr. J. Elder Cumming, 
“* Through the Eternal Spirit.” 


THE ENDUEMENT OF THE SPIRIT 81 


Spirit, except as an influence, an impersonal some- 
thing to be vaguely recognized. Of the Holy 
Ghost as a Divine Person, dwelling in the church, 
to be honored and invoked and obeyed and impli- 
citly trusted, they know nothing. Is it conceiv- 
able that there could be any deep spiritual life or 
any real sanctified energy for service in a com- 
munity like this? And what should a well- 
instructed teacher or evangelist do, on discovering 
a church or an individual Christian in such a con- 
dition? Let us turn to another passage of the 
Acts for an answer: ‘‘Now when the apostles 
which were at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had 
received the word of God they sent unto them 
Peter and John, who when they were come down 
prayed for them that they might receive the Holy 
Ghost ; for as yet he had fallen upon none of 
them ; only they were baptized in the name of the 
Lord Jesus. Then laid they their hands on 
them and they received the Holy Ghost’’ (Acts 
8 : 14-17). 

Here were believers who had been baptized in 
water. But this was not enough. The baptism 
in the Spirit, already bestowed at Pentecost, must 
be appropriated. Hear the prayer of the apostles 
‘that they might receive the Holy Ghost.’’ Such 
prayer we deem eminently proper for those who 
to-day may be ignorant of the Comforter. And 
yet such prayer should be followed by an act of 
believing acceptance on the part of the willing 
disciple : ‘‘O Holy Spirit, I yield to thee now in 
humble surrender. I receive thee as my Teacher, 


e 


82 THE MINISTRY OF THE SPIRIT 


my Comforter, my Sanctifier, and my Guide.’’ 
Do not testimonies abound on every hand of new 
lives resulting from such an act of consecration as 
this, lives full of peace and power and victory 
among those who before had received the 
forgiveness of sins but not the enduement of 
power? 

We conceive that the great end for which the 
enduement of the Spirit is bestowed is our qualifi- 
cation for the highest and most effective service in 
the church of Christ. Other effects will certainly 
attend the blessing, a fixed assurance of our 
acceptance in Christ, and a holy separateness 
from the world ; but these results will be condu- 
cive to the greatest and supreme end, our conse- 
crated usefulness. 

Let us observe that Christ, who is our example 
in this as in all things, did not enter upon his min- 
istry till he had received the Holy Ghost. Not 
only so, but we see that all his service from his 
baptism to his ascension was wrought in the Spirit. 
Ask concerning his miracles, and we hear him 
saying: ‘‘I by the Spirit of God cast out devils’’ 
(Matt. 12 : 28). Ask concerning that decease 
which he accomplished at Jerusalem, and we read 
‘that he through the eternal Spirit offered himself 
without spot unto God"’ (Heb. 9 : 14). Ask con- 
cerning the giving of the great commission, and 
we read that he was received up ‘‘after that he 
through the Holy Ghost had given commandments 
unto the apostles’’ (Acts 1: 2). Thus, though 
he was the Son of God, he acted ever in supreme 


THE ENDUEMENT OF THE SPIRIT 83 


reliance upon him who has been called the 
‘‘ Executive of the Godhead.”’ 

Plainly we see how Christ was our pattern and 
exemplar in his relation to the Holy Spirit. He 
had been begotten of the Holy Ghost in the womb 
of the virgin, and had lived that holy and obedi- 
ent life which this divine nativity would imply. 
But when he would enter upon his public ministry, 
he waited for the Spirit to come upon him, as he 
had hitherto been in him. For this anointing we 
find him praying: *‘ Jesus also being baptized and 
praying, the heaven was opened, and the Holy 
Ghost descended in a bodily shape like a dove 
upon him’’ (Luke 3 : 22). Had he any ‘‘ prom- 
ise of the Father ’’ to plead, as he now asked the 
anointing of the Spirit, if as we may believe this 
was the subject of his prayer? Yes; it had been 
written in the prophets concerning the rod out of 
the stem of Jesse: ‘‘And the Spirit of the Lord 
shall rest upon him; the spirit of wisdom and 
understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, 
the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the 
Porass (isa 2). ot’ The-promise’of the seven 
fold Spirit,’ the Jewish commentators call it. 
Certainly it was literally fulfilled upon the Son of 
God at the Jordan, when God gave him the Spirit 
without measure. For he who was now baptized 
was in turn to be baptizer. ‘‘Upon whom thou 
shalt see the Spirit descending, and remaining on 
him, the same is he which baptizeth with the Holy 
Ghost’’ (John 1 : 33). ‘‘I indeed baptize you 
in water unto repentance: but he that cometh 


84 THE: MINISTRY OF THE: SPIRIC 


after me is mightier than I . . . he shall baptize 
you in the Holy Ghost and in fire’’ (Matt. 3: 11, 
R. V.). And now being at the right hand exalted, 
and having ‘‘the seven spirits of God’’ (Rev. 
3 : 3), the fullness of the Holy Ghost, he will shed 
forth his power upon those who pray for it, even 
as the Father shed it forth upon himself. 

Let us observe now the symbols and descriptions 
of the enduement of the Spirit which are applied 
equally to Christ and to the disciples of Christ. 

1. Zhe Sealing of the Spirit. We hear Jesus 
saying to the multitude that sought him for the 
loaves and fishes, ‘‘ Labor nut for the meat which 
perisheth, but for the meat which endureth unto 
eternal life, which the Son of man shall give unto 
you, for him hath God the Father sealed’’ (John 
6: 27). This sealing must evidently refer back 
to his reception of the Spirit at the Jordan. One 
of the most instructive writers on the Hebrew wor- 
ship and ritual tells us that it was the custom for 
the priest to whom the service pertained, having 
selected a lamb from the flock, to inspect it with 
the most minute scrutiny, in order to discover if 
it was without physical defect, and then to seal it 
with the temple seal, thus certifying that it was fit 
for sacrifice and for food. Behold the Lamb of 
God presenting himself for inspection at the Jor- 
dan! Under the Father’s omniscient scrutiny he 
is found to be ‘‘a lamb without blemish and with- 
out spot.’’ From the opening heaven God gives 
witness to the fact in the words: ‘‘ This is my 
beloved Son in whom I am well pleased,’’ and 


THE ENDUEMENT OF THE SPIRIT 85 


then he puts the Holy Ghost upon him, the testi- 
mony to his sonship, the seal of his separation 
unto sacrifice and service. 

The disciple is as his Lord in this experience 
‘‘In whom having also believed ye were sealed 
with the Holy Spirit of promise’’ (Eph. 1 : 13). 
As always in the statements of Scripture, this 
transaction is represented as subsequent to 
faith. It is not conversion, but something done 
upon a converted soul, a kind of crown of 
consécration put upon his faith. Indeed the 
two events stand in marked contrast. In con- 
version the believer receives the testimony 
of God and ‘sets his seal to it that God is 
true’’ (John 3: 33). In consecration God sets 
his seal upon the believer that he is true. 
The last is God's ‘‘Amen’”’ to the Christian, 
verifying the Christian’s ‘‘Amen’’ to God. 
‘‘Now he which establisheth us with you in 
Christ, and anointed us, is God; who also 
sealed us and gave us the earnest of the Spirit 
in our hearts’’ (2 Cor. 1: 21, 22). 

If we ask to what we are committed and sepa- 
rated by this divine transaction, we may learn by 
studying the church’s monograph, if such we may 
name what is brought out in a mysterious passage 
in one of the pastoral epistles. In spite of the 
defection and unbelief of some, the apostle says : 
‘‘ Nevertheless the foundation of God standeth 
sure, having this seal.’’ Then he gives us the 
two inscriptions on the seal: ‘‘ The Lord knoweth 
them that are his’’; and, ‘‘ Let every one that 


86 THE MINISTRY OF THE SPIRIT 


nameth the name of the Lord depart from unright- 
eousness ’’ (2 Tim. 2 : 19)—Ownership and _holi- 
ness. When we receive the gift of the Holy Spirit 
it is that we may count ourselves henceforth and 
altogether Christ’s. If any shrink from this 
devotement, how can he have the fullness of the 
Spirit? God cannot put his signature upon what 
is not his. Hence, if under the sway of a worldly 
spirit we withhold ourselves from God and insist 
on self-ownership, we need not count it strange if 
God withholds himself from us and denies us the 
seal of divine ownership. God is very jealous of 
his divine signet. He graciously bestows it upon 
those who are ready to devote themselves utterly 
and irrevocably to his service, but he strenuously 
withholds it from those who, while professing his 
name, are yet ‘‘serving divers lusts and pleas- 
ures.’ There is a suggestive passage in the Gos- 
pel of John which, translated so as to bring out 
the antitheses which it contains, reads thus: 
‘‘Many trusted in his name, beholding the signs 
which he did; but Jesus did not trust himself to 
them '’ (John 2: 23, 24). Here is the great essen- 
tial to our having the seal of the Spirit. Can the 
Lord trust us? Nay, the question is more 
serious. Can he trust himself to us? The 
Holy Spirit, which is his signet ring, can he 
commit it to our use for signing our prayers 
and for certifying ourselves, and his honor not 
be compromised ? 

The other inscription on the seal is: ‘‘Let 
every one that nameth the name of the Lord 


THE ENDUEMENT OF THE SPIRIT 37 


depart from unrighteousness.’’ ' The possession 


of the Spirit commits us irrevocably to separation 
from sin. For what is holiness but an emanation 
of the Spirit of holiness who dwells within us? A 
sanctified life is therefore the print or impression of 
his seal: ‘‘He can never own us without his 
mark, the stamp of holiness. The devil’s stamp 
is none of God's badge. Our spiritual extraction 
from him is but pretended unless we do things 
worthy of so illustrious birth and becoming the 
honor of so great a Father.’’ The great office 
of the Spirit in the present economy is to com- 
municate Christ to his church which is his body. 
And what is so truly essential of Christ as holi- 
ness? ‘‘In him is no sin; whosoever abideth in 
him sinneth not.’ The body can only be sinless 
by uninterrupted communion with the Head ; the 
Head will not maintain communion with the body 
except it be holy. 

The idea of ownership, just considered, comes 
out still further in the words of the apostle: ‘‘ And 
grieve not the Spirit of God in whom ye were 
sealed unto the day of redemption’’ (Eph. 4 : 30). 
The day of redemption is at the advent of our 
Lord in glory, when he shall raise the dead and 
translate the living. Now his own are in the 
world, but the world knows them not. But he has 
put his mark and secret sign upon them, by which 
he shall recognize them at his coming. In that 


1 It will be observed that the inscription on the seal is substan- 
tially the same as that upon the forehead of the High Priest, 


mind ws p—Horiness To THE Lorp (Exod. 39 : 30). 


88 THE MINISTRY OF THE SPIRIT 


great quickening, at the Redeemer’s advent, the 
Holy Spirit will be the seal by which the saints 
will be recognized, and the power through which 
they will be drawn up to God. ‘‘If the Spirit 
that raised up Jesus dwell in you’’ (Rom. 11 : 9), 
is the great condition of final quickening. As the 
magnet attracts the particles of iron and attaches 
them to itself by first imparting its own magnetism 
to them, so Christ, having given his Spirit to his 
own, will draw them to himself through the Spirit. 
We are not questioning now that all who have 
eternal life dwelling in them will share in the 
redemption of the body ; we are simply entering 
into the apostle’s exhortation against grieving the 
Spirit. We must fear lest we mar the seal by 
which we were stamped, lest we deface or obscure 
the signature by which we are to be recognized in 
the day of redemption. ! 

In aword the sealing is the Spirit himself, now 
received by faith and resting upon the believer, 
with all the results in assurance, in joy, and in 

1 The allusion to the seal as a pledge of purchase would be 
peculiarly intelligible to the Ephesians, for Ephesus was a mari- 
time city, and an extensive trade in timber was carried on there 
by the shipmasters of the neigboring ports. The method of pur- 
chase was this: The merchant, after selecting his timber, 
stamped it with his own signet, which was an acknowledged sign 
of ownership. He often did not carry off his possession at the 
time; it was left in the harbor with other floats of timber; but 
it was chosen, bought, and stamped ; and in due time the mer- 
chant sent a trusty agent with the signet, who finding that 
timber which bore a corresponding impress, claimed and brought 
it away for the master’s use. Thus the Holy Spirit impresses 
on the soul now the image of Jesus Christ; and this is the sure 


pledge of the everlasting inheritance.—Z£. H. Bickersteth, ‘‘ The 
Spirit of Life,’ p. 176. 


4 


THE ENDUEMENT OF THE SPIRIT 89 


empowering for service, which must follow his 
unhindered sway in the soul. Dr. John Owen, 
who has written more intelligently and more 
exhaustively on this subject than any with whom 
we are acquainted, thus sums up the subject: 


ey 


‘‘If we can learn aright how Christ was sealed, 
we shall learn how we are sealed. The sealing 
of Christ by the Father is the communication of 
the Holy Spirit in fullness to him, authorizing him 
unto and acting his divine power in all the acts 
and duties of his office, so as to evidence the 
presence of God with him and approbation of 
him. God's sealing of believers then is his gra- 
cious communication of the Holy Spirit unto them 
so to act his divine power in them as to enable 
them unto all the duties of their holy calling, evi- 
dencing them to be accepted with him both for 
themselves and others, and asserting their preser- 
vation unto eternal life.’’ } 

2. The Fullness of the Spirit. Immediately 
upon his baptism we read: ‘‘ And Jesus, full of 
the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was 
led by the Spirit into the wilderness’’ (Luke 4: 1). 
The same record is made concerning the upper- 
room disciples, immediately after the descent of 
the Spirit: ‘‘And they were all filled with the 
Holy Spirit ’’ (Acts 2 : 4). What is here spoken of 
seems nothing different from what in other Scrip- 
tures is called the reception of the Spirit. Itis a 
transaction that may be repeated, and will be if 


1John Owen, D.D., ‘‘ Discourse Concerning the Spirit,’ 
PP. 406, 407. 


go THE MINISTRY OF THE SPIRIT 


we are living in the Spirit. But it is clearly an 
experience belonging to one who has already been 
converted. This comes out very plainly in the 
life of Paul. If according to the opinion quoted 
in the early part of this chapter, the reception of 
the Spirit is associated always and inseparably 
with conversion, one will reasonably ask, why a 
conversion so marked and so radical as that of the 
apostle to the Gentiles need be followed by such 
an experience as that named in Acts 9g: 17: 
‘©And Ananias departed and entered into the 
house, and laying his hands on him, said : Brother 
Saul, the Lord, even Jesus who appeared unto 
thee in the way which thou camest, hath sent me 
that thou mightest receive thy sight and be filled 
with the Holy Ghost.’’ We seem to have a clear 
allusion here to that which so constantly appears 
in Scripture, both in doctrine and in life, a divine 
something distinct from conversion and subsequent 
to it, which we have called the reception of the 
Spirit. ‘‘The enduement of power’’ we may 
well name it,; for observe how constantly through- 
out the book of Acts mighty works and mighty 
utterances are connected with this qualification. 
«Then Peter, filled with the Holy Ghost, said 
unto them’’ (Acts 4: 8), is the preface to one of 
the apostle’s most powerful sermons. ‘‘ And they 
were al/ filled with the Holy Ghost, and they spake 
the word with boldness’’ (Acts 4: 31), is a simi- 
lar record. And they chose Stephen, a man /#// 
of faith and of the Holy Ghost, the narrative runs, 
regarding the choice of deacons in Acts 6: 5. 


THE ENDUEMEN'’t OF THE SPIRIT gI 


‘‘And he, being full of the Holy Ghost,’ is the 
keynote to his great martyr-sermon. This infill- 
ing of the Spirit marksa decisive and most impor- 
tant crisis in the Christian life, judging from the 
story of the apostle’s conversion, to which we have 
just referred. 

But, as we have intimated, we are far from 
maintaining that this is an experience once for all, 
as the sealing seems to be. As the words “ regen- 
eration ’’ and ‘‘renewal’’ used in Scripture mark 
respectively the impartation of the divine life as a 
perpetual possession and its increase by repeated 
communications, soin our sealing there is a recep- 
tion of the Spirit once for all, which reception may 
be followed by repeated fillings. It is reasonable 
to conclude this since our capacity is ever increas- 
ing and our need constantly recurring, according 
to the beautiful saying of Godet: ‘‘ Man is a 
vessel destined to receive God, a vessel which 
must be enlarged in proportion as it is filled and 
filled in proportion as it is enlarged.”’ 

And yet we confess here to a degree of uncer- 
tainty as to the use of terms, and as to whether 
the two now under consideration are identical. 
We may well pause therefore and lift a prayer, 
that since ‘‘we have received not the spirit of 
the world but the Spirit which is of God, that we 
might know the things which are freely given to us 
of God,’’ this blessed Revelator and Interpreter 
may not only reveal to us our privilege and inherit- 
ance in the Holy Ghost, but teach us to name and 
distinguish the terms by which it is conveyed. 


92 THE MINISTRY OF THE SPIRIT 


While the fact of which we are speaking seems 
undoubted, the exposition of it is far from being 
easy. Therefore we should attach no little value 
to a consensus of opinion on this subject from those 
who have thought most carefully and searched 
most prayerfully concerning it. This is our apol- 
ogy for the multiplied quotations which we are 
introducing into this chapter, believing that the 
Holy Spirit is most likely to interpret himself 
through those who most honor him in seeking his 
guidance and illumination. 

In arecent work upon this subject, in which 
careful scholarship and spiritual insight seem to be 
well united, the author thus states his conclusions : 
‘‘It seems to me beyond question, as a matter of 
experience both of Christians in the present day 
and of the early church, as recorded by inspira- 
tion, that in addition to the gift of the Spirit 
received at conversion, there is another blessing 
corresponding in its signs and effects to the bless- 
ing received by the apostles at Pentecost—a bless- 
ing to be asked for and expected by Christians 
still, and to be described in language similar to 
that employed in the book of the Acts. Whatever 
that blessing may be, it is in immediate connec- 
tion with the Holy Ghost; and one of the terms 
by which we may designate it is ‘to be filled with 
with the Spirit.’ As with the early Christians so 
with us now, the filling comes when there is special 
need for it. . . And there is an occasion when 
that blessing comes to a man for the first time. 
That first time is a spiritual crisis from which his 


THE ENDUEMENT OF THE SPIRIT 93 


future spiritual life must be dated. There may be 
a question as to what it is to be called, or at least 
by what name in Scripture we are authorized to 
callit. . . Whether consciously or not, it is to 
the fact of the Holy Spirit’s coming in new power 
to the soul that all new life is due ; and the more 
that this is consciously understood the more is the 
Holy Ghost in his due place in our hearts. It is 
only when he is consciously accepted in all his 
power that we can be said to be either ‘ baptized ’ 
or ‘ filled’ with the Holy Ghost. I should like to 
add that it is possible to maintain that God from 
the first offered to his own people a higher posi- 
tion in this matter than they have generally been 
able to occupy, in that the fullness of the Spirit 
was and is offered to each soul at conversion ; and 
that it is only from want of faith that subsequent 
outpourings of the Holy Ghost become needful.’’ 1 

That the filling of the Spirit belongs to us asa 
covenant privilege seems to be clear from the 
exhortation in the Epistle to the Ephesians, which 
is confessedly of universal application : ‘‘ Be not 
drunken with wine, wherein is excess, but be filled 
with the Spirit’’ (Eph. 5: 18). The passive verb 
employed here is suggestive. The surrendered 
will, the yielded body, the emptied heart, are the 
great requisites to his incoming. And when he 
has come and filled the believer, the result is a 
kind of passive activity, as of one wrought upon 
and controlled rather than of one directing his 


1“ Through the Eternal Spirit,’? by James Elder Cumming, 
D.D., pp. 146, 147. 


os 


94 THE MINISTRY OF THE SPIRIT 


own efforts. Under the influence of strong drink 
there is an outpouring of all that the evil spirit 
inspires—frivolity, profanity, and riotous conduct. 
‘‘Be God-intoxicated men,’’ the apostle would 
seem to say ; ‘‘let the Spirit of God so control you 
that you shall pour yourself out in psalms and 
hymns and spiritual songs.’’ If such divine 
enthusiasm has its perils, we believe that they are 
less to be dreaded than that ‘‘ moderatism ’’ which 
makes the servants of God satisfied with the letter 
of Scripture if only that letter be skillfully and 
scientifically handled, rather than giving the 
supreme place to the Spirit as the inspirer and 
motor of all Christian service. 

3. The Anointing of the Spirit. After the 
baptism and temptation we find our Lord appro- 
priating to himself the words of the prophet, as 
he read them in the synagogue of Nazareth: 
‘« The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he 
hath anointed meto preach good tidings to the 
poor’’ (Luke 4: 18). Twice in the Acts there is 
a reference to this important event in similar 
terms: ‘‘ Thy holy servant Jesus, whom thou 
didst anoint’’ (Acts 4:27, R.V.). “Jesus of 
Nazareth, how that God anointed him with the 
Holy Ghost and with power "’ (Acts 10: 38). And 
as with the Lord so with his disciples: ‘‘Now he 
that establisheth us with you in Christ, and 
anointed us, is God’’ (2: Cor viee2 1 ee V.). 

A student of the Scriptures need not be told 
how closely the ceremony of anointing was related 
to all important offices and ministries of the ser- 


THE ENDUEMENT OF THE SPIRIT 95 


vants of Jehovah under the old covenant. The 
priest was anointed that he might be holy unte 
the Lord (Lev. 8: 12). The king was anointed 
that the Spirit of the Lord might rest upon him in 
power (1 Sam. 16:15). The prophet was 
anointed that he might be the oracle of God to 
the people (1 Kings 19:16). No servant of 
Jehovah was deemed qualified for his ministry 
without this holy sanctifying touch laid upon him. 
Even in the cleansing of the leper this ceremony 
was not wanting. The priest was required to dip 
his right finger in the oil that was in his left 
hand and to put it upon the tip of the right ear, 
upon the thumb of the right hand, and upon the 
great toe of the right foot of him that was to be 
cleansed, the oil ‘‘ xpon the blood of the trespass- 
offering’’ (Lev. 14: 17). Thus with divine 
accuracy did even the types fortell the two-fold 
provision for the Christian life, cleansing by 
the blood and hallowing by the oil—justification 
in Christ, sanctification in the Spirit. 

If we ask now what this anointing is, the reply 
is obviously the Holy Spirit himself. As before 
he was the seal attesting us, so now he is the oil 
sanctifying us—the same gift described by differ- 
ent symbols. And as it was the Aaron who had 
been the first anointed who was qualified to anoint 
others, so with our great High Priest. It is he 
within the veil who gives the Spirit unto his own, 
that he may qualify them to be ‘‘an elect race, a 
royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God's 
own possession (1 Peter 2:9, R. V.). ‘But ye 


96 THE MINISTRY OF THE SPIRIT 


have an anointing from the Holy One, and ye 
know all things’’ (1 John 2: 20). Christ in the 
New Testament is constantly called ‘‘the Holy 
One.’’ And because the Spirit was sent to com- 
municate him to the people, they are made par- 
takers of his knowledge as well as of his holiness. 
If it should be said that this unction of which 
John speaks is miraculous, the divine illumination 
of evangelists and prophets who were commissioned 
to be the vehicles of inspired Scripture, we must 
call attention to other passages which connect the 
knowledge of God with the Holy Ghost. ‘‘ For 
who among men knoweth the things of a man 
save the spirit of a man which is in him ; even so 
the things of God none knoweth save the Spirit 
OeGody s(1 Gone2"a19} RY V.). The horse and 
his rider may see the same magnificent piece of 
statuary in the park ; the one may be delighted 
with it as a work of human genius, but upon the 
dull eye of the other it makes no impression, and 
for the reason that it takes a human mind to 
appreciate the work of the human mind. Like- 
wise only the Spirit of God can know and make 
known the thoughts and teachings and revelations 
of God. This seems to be the meaning of John 
in his discourse concerning the divine unction : 
‘But the anointing which ye have received of him 
abideth in you, and ye need not that any man 
teach you; but as the same anointing teacheth 
you of all things” (1 John 2 : 27). 

In nothing does the enduement of the Spirit 
more distinctly manifest itself than in the fine dis- 


THE ENDUEMENT OF THE SPIRIT 97 


cernment of revealed truth which it imparts. As 
in service, the contrast between working in the 
power of the Spirit and in the energy of the flesh 
is easily discernible, even more clearly in knowl- 
edge and teaching is the contrast between the 
tuition of learning and the intuition of the Spirit. 
While we should not undervalue the former, it is 
striking to note how the Bible puts the weightier 
emphasis on the latter ; so that really the unspiri- 
tual hearer is to be accounted less blameworthy 
for not discerning the truth than the intellectual 
preacher is for expecting him to do so. When, 
for example, one attempts with the utmost learn- 
ing to convince an unbeliever of the deity of 
Christ and fails, the word of Scripture to him is : 
‘‘No man is able to say ‘ Lord Jesus’ save in the 
Holy Ghost’’ (1 Cor. 12 : 3). 

The Spirit of Jesus can alone reveal to men the 
lordship of Jesus, and this key of knowledge the 
Holy Ghost will never put into the hand of any 
man however learned. As it is written that Christ 
is the ‘‘raying forth’’ of the Father’s glory, and 
‘“‘the express image of his person’’ (Heb. 
I: 3), thus by a beautiful figure reminding us 
that as we can only see the sun in the rays of the 
sun, so we can only know God in Jesus Christ, 
who is the manifestation of God. It is so like- 
wise between the second and third Persons of the 
Trinity. Christ is the image of the invisible God ; 
the Holy Ghost is the invisible image of Christ. 
As Jesus manifested the Father outwardly, the 


Spirit manifests Jesus inwardly, forming him 
7 


98 THE MINISTRY OF THE SPIRIT 


within us as the hidden man of the heart, imag- 
ing him to the spirit by an interior impression 
which no intellectual instruction, however diligent, 
can effect. 

In his profound discourse concerning the 
‘‘unction ’’ and accompanying illumination, John 
was only expounding by the Spirit what Jesus had 
said before his departure: ‘‘ Howbeit when he, the 
Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all 
truth ; he shall glorify me ; for he shall receive of 
mine mie shall show it ate you’’ (John 16: 13). 
“The Spirit of truth’’—How much instruction 
and suggestion is conveyed by this term! As he 
is called ‘‘the Spirit of Christ,’’ as revealing 
Christ in his suffering and glory, so he is called 
‘‘the Spirit of truth,’’ as manifesting the truth in 
all its depths and heights. As impossible as it is 
that we should know the person of Christ without 
the Spirit of Christ who reveals him, so impossible 
it is that we should know the truth as it is in Jesus 
without the Spirit of truth who is appointed to 
convey it. ‘‘ The Spirit of truth whom the world 
cannot receive '’ (John 14 : 17)—We must come 
to Christ before the Spirit can come to us. ‘‘ The 
Spirit of truth which proceedeth from the Father’’ 
(John 15 : 26)—He can only teach us in intelli- 
gent sonship to cry ‘‘Abba, Father.’’ The Spirit 
of truth . . . shall guide you into all truth”’ 
(John 16 : 13). Divine knowledge is all and alto- 
gether in his power to communicate, and with- 
out his illumination it must be hidden from our 
understanding. 


THE ENDUEMENT OF THE SPIRIT 99 


Thus we have had the enduement of the Spirit 
presented to us under three aspects—sealing, fill- 
ing, and anointing—all of which terms, so far as we 
can understand, signify the same thing—the gift of 
the Holy Ghost appropriated through faith. Each of 
these terms is connected with some special Divine 
endowment—the seal with assurance and consecra- 
tion : the filling with power; and the anointing 
with knowledge. All these gifts are wrapt up in the 
one giftin which they are included, and without 
whom we are excluded from their possession. 

While thus we conclude that it is a Christian’s 
privilege and duty to claim a distinct anointing 
of the Spirit to qualify him for his work, we would 
be careful not to prescribe any stereotyped exer- 
cises through which one must necessarily pass in 
order to possess it. It is easy to cite cases of 
decisive, vivid, and clearly marked experience of 
the Spirit’s enduement, as in the lives of Dr. 
Finney, James Brainard Taylor, and many others. 
And instead of discrediting these experiences—so 
definite as to time and so distinct as to accom- 
panying credentials ~we would ask the reader to 
study them, and observe the remarkable effects 
which followed in the ministry of those who 
enjoyed them. The lives of many of the co- 
laborers with Wesley and Whitefield give a strik- 
ing confirmation of the doctrine which we are 
defending. Years of barren ministry, in which 
the gospel was preached with orthodox correctness 
and literary finish, followed, after the Holy Spirit 
had been recognized and appropriated, by evan- 


I0o THE. MINISTRY OF THE SPIRIT 


gelistic pastorates of the most fervent type, such is 
the history of not a few of these mighty men of God, 

Let not this great subject be embarrassed by 
too minute theological definitions on the one 
hand, nor by the too exacting demand for striking 
spiritual exercises on the other, lest we put upon 
simple souls a burden greater than they can bear. 
Nevertheless we cannot emphasize too strongly 
the divine crisis in the soul which a full reception 
of the Holy Ghost may bring. ‘‘ My little chil- 
dren, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ 
be formed in you’’ (Gal. 4: 19), writes the apostle 
to those who had already believed on the Son of 
God. Whatever he may have meant in this fer- 
vent saying, we doubt not that the deepest yearn- 
ing of the Spirit is for the informing of Christ in 
the heart, in order to that outward conformity to 
Christ which is the supreme end of Christian 
nurture. If we conceive of the Christian life as 
only a gradual growth in grace, is there not dan- 
ger that we come to regard this growth as both 
invisible and inevitable, and so take little respon- 
sibility for its accomplishment? Let the believer 
receive the Holy Ghost by a definite act of faith 
for his consecration, as he received Christ by 
faith for his justification, and may he not be sure 
that he is in a safe and scriptural way of acting ? 
We know of no plainer form of stating the matter 
than to speak of it as a simple acceptance by faith, 
the faith which is 

An affirmation and an act, 
Which bids eternal truth be present fact. 


THE ENDUEMENT OF THE SPIRIT Io! 


It is a fact that Christ has made atonement for 
sin ; in conversion faith appropriates this fact in 
order to our justification. It is a fact that the 
Holy Ghost has been given ; in consecration faith 
appropriates this fact for our sanctification. One 
who writes upon this subject with a scholarship 
evidently illuminated by a deep spiritual tuition, 
says: ‘‘If a reference to personal experience may 
be permitted, I may indeed here ‘set my seal.’ 
Never shall I forget the gain to conscious faith and 
peace which came to my own soul, not long after 
a first decisive and appropriating view of the cru- 
cified Lord as the sinner’s sacrifice of peace, from 
a more intelligent and conscious hold upon the 
living and most gracious personality of the Spirit 
through whose mercy the soul had got that blessed 
view. It was a new development of insight into 
the love of God. Jt was a new contact as tt were 
with the inner and eternal movements of redeem- 
ing goodness and power, a new discovery in divine 
resources,”’ } 

Well is our doctrine described in these italicised 
words: ‘(4 contact with the inner movements of 
Divine power.’’ The energy of the Spirit appro- 
priated, even as with uplifted finger the electric 
car touches the current which is moving just above 
it in the wire and is borne irresistibly on by it.— 
Thus does the power which is eternally for us 
become a power within us ; the law of Sinai, with 
its tables of stone, is replaced by ‘‘ the law of the 


1“ Veni Creator Spiritus,’ by Principal H. C. G. Moule, 
D. 13. 


102 THE -MINISTRY (OF STHE; SPIRIT 


Spirit of life’’ in the fleshly tables of the heart ; 
the outward commandment is exchanged for an 
inward decalogue ; hard duty by holy delight, that 
henceforth the Christian life may be ‘‘ all in Christ, 
by the Holy Spirit, for the glory of God.’’ 


Vi 


JHeve 
COMMUNION OF THE SPIRIT 


“In his intimate union with his Son, the Holy 
Spirit is the unique organ by which God wills to 
communicate to man his own life, the supernatural 
life, the divine life—that is to say, his holiness, his 
power, his love, his felicity. To this’ end the Son 
works outwardly, the Holy Spirit inwardly.’’— Pastor 
G. F. Tophel. . 


104 


THE COMMUNION OF THE SPIRIT 


beq|1E familiar benediction which invokes 
upon us the ‘‘ communion of the Holy 
Ghost’’ has probably a deeper mean- 
ing in it than has generally been recognized. The 
word ‘‘ communion ’’ —roivwvia—signifies the hav- 
ing in common. It is used of the fellowship of 
believers one with another, and also of their mutual 
fellowship with God. The Holy Spirit dwelling in 
us is the agent through whom this community of 
life and love is effected and maintained. ‘‘ And 
truly our fellowship,’’ says John, ‘‘is with the 
Father and with his Son Jesus Christ’’ (1 John 1: 
3). But this having in common with the first two 
persons of the Godhead were only possible through 
the communion of the Holy Ghost, the third per- 
son. In his promise of the Comforter, Jesus said : 
‘‘ He shall take of mine and show it unto you.’’ 
As the Son while on earth communicated to men 
the spiritual riches of the invisible Father, so the 
Spirit now communicates to us the hidden things 
of the invisible Son; and if we were required to 


describe in a word the present office-work of the 
i05 


106 THES MINISTRY SORSTHESSPIRIGD 


Holy Ghost, we should say that it is to make true 
zm us that which is already true for us in our glori- 
fied Lord. All light and life and warmth are 
stored up for usin the sun; but these can only 
reach us through the atmosphere which stands 
between us and that sun as the medium of com- 
munication; even so in Christ are ‘‘ hidden all 
the treasures of wisdom and knowledge,’’ and by 
the Holy Spirit these are made over to us. It 
will be our endeavor in this chapter to count up 
our hid treasures in Christ, and to consider the 
Spirit in his various offices of communication. 

1. The Spirit of Life: Our Regeneration. 
Not until our Lord took his place at God's right 
hand did he assume his full prerogative as life- 
giver to us. He was here in the flesh for our 
death ; he took on him our nature that he might 
in himself crucify our Adam-life and put it away. 
But when he rose from the dead and sat down on 
his Father’s throne, he became the life-giver to all 
his mystical body, which is the church. To talk 
of being saved by the earthly life of Jesus is to 
know Christ only ‘‘after the flesh.’’ True, the 
apostle says that ‘‘being reconciled’’ by Christ's 
death, ‘‘much more being reconciled we shall be 
saved by his life.’’ But he here refers plainly to 
his glorified life. And Jesus, looking forward to 
the time when he should have risen from the dead, 
says: ‘‘ Because I live, ye shall live also.’’ 
Christ on the throne is really the heart of the 
church, and every regeneration is a pulse-beat of 
that heart in souls begotten from above through 


THE COMMUNION OF THE SPIRIT 107 


the Holy Spirit. The new birth therefore is not a 
change of nature as it is sometimes defined ; it is 
rather the communication of the Divine nature, 
and the Holy Spirit is now the Mediator through 
whom this life is transmitted. If we take our 
Lord's words to Nicodemus : ‘‘ Except a man be 
born again he cannot see the kingdom of God,”’ 
and press the ‘‘again’’ dvwfev back to its deepest 
significance, it becomes very instructive. ‘‘ Born 
Jrom above,’’ say some. And very true to fact is 
this saying. Regeneration is not our natural life 
carried up to its highest point of attainment, but 
the Divine life brought down to its lowest point of 
condescension, even to the heart of fallen man. 
John, in speaking of Jesus as the life-giver, calls 
him ‘‘ he that cometh from above’’ (3: 31); and 
Jesus, in speaking to the degenerate sons of 
Abraham, says: ‘‘ Ye are from beneath, 1 am 
Jrom above’’ (John 8: 23). It has been the con- 
stant dream and delusion of men that they could 
rise to heaven by the development and improve- 
ment of their natural life. Jesus by one stroke of 
revelation destroys this hope, telling his hearer 
that unless he has been begotten of God who is 
above as truly as he has been begotten of his 
father on earth, he cannot see the kingdom of God. 

Others make these words of our Lord signify 
“born from the beginning.’’ There must be a 
resumption of life de zovo, a return to the original 
source and fountain of being. To find this it is 
not enough that we go back to the creation begin- 
ning revealed in Genesis ; we must return to the 


108 THE MINISTRY OF THE SPIRIT 


pre-creation-beginning revealed in John, the book 
of re-genesis. In the opening of Genesis we find 
Adam, created holy, now fallen through tempta- 
tion, his face averted from God and leading the 
whole human race after him into sin and death. 
In the opening of the Gospel of John we find the 
Son of God in holy fellowship with the Father. 
‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word 
was toward God, zpic roy 6edy—not merely pro- 
ceeding from God, but tending toward God by 
eternal communion. Conversion restores man to 
this lost attitude : ‘‘ Ye turned to God, Tpoc TOV Bedr, 
from idols to serve the living and true God’’ (1 
Thess. 1: 9). Regeneration restores man to his 
forfeited life, the unfallen life of the Son of God, 
the life which has never wavered from steadfast 
fellowship with the Father. ‘‘I give unto them 
eternal life,’’ says Jesus. Is eternal life without 
end? Yes; and just as truly without beginning. 
It is uncreated being in distinction from all-created 
being ; it is the I-am life of God in contrast to the 
I-become life of all human souls. By spiritual 
birth we acquire a divine heredity as truly as by 
natural birth we acquire a human heredity. 

In the condensed antithesis with which our 
Lord concludes his demand for the new birth, we 
have both the philosophy and the justification of 
his doctrine: ‘‘ That which is born of the flesh is 
flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. 
Marvel not that I say unto you, Ye must be born 
anew’ (John 3:7, R. V.). By no process of 
evolution, however prolonged, can the natural 


THE COMMUNION OF THE SPIRIT 109 


man be developed into the spiritual man; by no 
process of degeneration can the spiritual man 
deteriorate into the natural man. These two are 
from a totally different stock and origin ; the one 
is from beneath, the other is from above. There 
is but one way through which the relation of son- 
ship can be established, and that is by begetting. 
That God has created all men does not constitute 
them his sons in the evangelical sense of that 
word. The sonship on which the New Testament 
dwells so constantly is based absolutely and solely 
on the experience of the new birth, while the doc- 
trine of universal sonship rests either upon a dar- 
ing denial ora daring assumption—the denial of 
the universal fall of man through sin, or the 
assumption of the universal regeneration of man 
through the Spirit. In either case the teaching 
belongs to ‘‘another gospel,’’ the recompense 
of whose preaching is not a beatitude but an 
anathema. ! 

The contrast between the two lives and the 
way in which the partnership—the rowwria—with 
the new is effected, is told in that deep saying of 
Peter : ‘‘ Whereby he hath granted us his precious 
and exceeding great promises ; that through these 
ye may become partakers—ro:wwroi—of the divine 
nature, having escaped from the corruption which 


1 Milton probably gives the true genesis of this doctrine in 
these words, which he puts into the mouth of Satan: 


** The son of God I also am or was; 
And if I was, I am; relation stands; 
All men are sons of God.’’ 


IIo THE MINISIFRY OF THE SPIRIT 


is in the world by lust”’ (2; Petal lip tee V eje 
Here are the two streams of life contrasted : 

1. The corruption in the world through lust. 

2. The Divine nature which is in the world 
through the incarnation. 

Here is the Adam-life ‘into which we are 
brought by natural birth ; and over against it the 
Christ-life into which we are brought by spiritual 
birth. From the one we escape, of the other we 
partake. The source and issue of the one are 
briefly summarized: ‘‘Lust when it hath con- 
ceived bringeth forth sin, and sin when it is fin- 
ished bringeth forth death.'’ The Jordan is a 
fitting symbol of our natural life, rising in a lofty 
elevation and from pure springs, but plunging 
steadily down till it pours itself into that Dead 
Sea from which there is no outlet. To be taken 
out of this stream and to be brought into the life 
which flows from the heart of God is a man’s only 
hope of salvation. And the method of effecting 
this transition is plainly stated, ‘‘ through these,”’ 
or by means of the precious and exceeding great 
promises. As in grafting, the old and degenerate 
stock must first be cut off and then the new 
inserted, so in regeneration we are separated from 
the flesh and incorporated by the Spirit. And 
what the scion is in grafting, the word or promise 
of God is in regeneration. It is the medium 
through which the Holy Spirit is conveyed, the 
germ cell in which the Divine life is enfolded. 
Hence the emphasis which is put in Scripture 
upon the appropriation of divine truth. We are 


THE COMMUNION OF THE SPIRIT Tl 


told that ‘‘of his own will begat he us with the 
word of truth’’ (James 1:18). ‘‘ Having been 
begotten again, not of corruptible seed but of 
incorruptible, through the word of God, which 
hveth andiabideth jai(1 -Peterii11223)0ReV.): 

Very deep and significant, therefore, is the say- 
ing of Jesus in respect to the regenerating power 
of his words, in the sixth chapter of the Gospel of 
John. He emphasizes the contrariety between the 
two natures, the human and the divine, saying: 
‘Tt is the Spirit that quickeneth, the flesh profiteth 
aothing.’’ And then he adds: ‘‘The words 
which I have spoken unto you are spirit and life.’’ 
As God in creation breathed into man the breath 
of life and he became a living soul, so the Lord 
Jesus by the word of his mouth, which is the 
breath of life, recreates man and makes him alive 
unto God. And not life only, but likeness as 
well, is thus imparted. ‘‘So God created man in 
his own image ; in the image of God created he 
him,’’ is the simple story of the origin of an inno- 
cent_race. Then follows the temptation and the 
fall, and then the story of the descent of a ruined 
humanity : ‘‘And Adam begot a son in his own 
likeness, after his image.’’ 

And yet how wide the gulf between these two 
origins. The notion is persistent and incurable 
in the human heart, that whatever variation there 
may have been from the original type, education 
and training can reshape the likeness of Adam to 
the likeness of God. ‘‘As the twig is bent the 
tree is inclined,’’ says the popular proverb. True; 


112 THE MINISTRY OF THE SPIRIT 


but though a crooked sapling may be developed 
into the upright oak, no bending cr manipulation 
can ever so change the species of the tree as to 
enable men to gather grapes of thorns or figs of 
thistles. Here again the dualism of Jesus Christ’s 
teaching is distinctly recognized. ‘‘A good tree 
cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a cor- 
rupt tree bring forth good fruit.’’ And what is the 
remedy fora corrupt tree? The cutting off of the 
old and the bringing in of a new scion and stock. 
The life of God can alone beget the likeness of 
God ; the divine type is wrapped up in the same 
germ which holds the Divine nature. Therefore 
in regeneration we are said to have ‘‘ put on the 
new man who is renewed in knowledge after the 
wmage of him that created him’’ (Col. 3 : 10), and 
‘‘which after God hath been created in . . . true 
holiness’’ (Eph. 4 : 24). 

In a word, the lost image of God is not 
restamped upon us, but renewed within us. Christ 
our life was ‘‘ begotten of the Holy Ghost,’’ and 
he became the fount and origin of life henceforth 
for all his church. This communication of the 
divine life from Christ to the soul through the 
Holy Spirit is a hidden transaction, but so great in 
its significance and issues that one has well called 
it ‘‘the greatest of all miracles.’ As in the origin 
of,our natural life we are made in secret and curi- 
ously wrought, much more in our spiritual. But 
the issue has to do with the farthest eternity. ‘As 
when the Lord was born the world still went on 
its old way, little conscious that one had come who 


THE COMMUNION OF THE SPIRIT rts 


should one day change and rule all things, so 
when the new man is framed within, the old life 
for a while goes on much as before ; the daily call- 
ing, and the earthly cares, and too often old lusts 
and habits also, still engross us; a worldly eye 
sees little new, while yet the life which shall live 
forever has been quickened within and a new man 
been formed who shall inherit all.’’ ? 

2. The Spirit of Holiness: Our Sanctifica- 
tion. ‘‘According to the Spirit of holiness ’’ 
Christ ‘‘was declared to be the Son of God in 
power by the resurrection from the dead’’ (Rom. 
1:4). How striking the antithesis between our 
Lord’s two natures, as revealed in this passage, 
Son of David as to the flesh, Son of God as to the 
Spirit. And ‘‘as he is so are we in this world.” 
We who are regenerate have two natures, the one 
derived from Adam, the other derived from Christ, 
and our sanctification consists in the double pro- 
cess of mortification and vivification, the dead- 
ening and subduing of the old and the quickening 
and developing of the new. In other words, what 
was wrought in Christ who was ‘‘ put to death in 
the flesh but quickened in the spirit ’’ is rewrought 
in us through the constant operation of the Holy 


‘Ghost, and thus the cross and resurrection extend 


their sway over the entire life of the Christian. 
Consider these two experiences. 

Mortification is not asceticism. It is not a self- 
inflicted compunction, but a Christ-inflicted cruci- 
fixion. Our Lord was done with the cross when 


1 Andrew Jukes, ‘‘The New Man,” p. 53. 


IIl4 THE MINISTRY OF THE SPIRIT 


on Calvary he cried: ‘‘ It is finished.’’ But where 
he ended each disciple must begin: ‘If any man 
will come after me let him deny himself and take 
up his cross and follow me. For whosoever will 
save his life shall lose it, and whosoever will lose 
his life for my sake shall find it’’ (Matt. 16: 24, 
25). These words, so constantly repeated in one 
form or another by our Lord, make it clear that 
the death-principle must be realized within us in 
order that the life-principle may have final and 
triumphant sway. . It is to this truth which every 
disciple is solemnly committed in his baptism : 
‘“Know ye not that so many of us as were bap- 
tized into Christ were baptized into his death ? 
Therefore we were buried with him by baptism 
into death, that hike as Christ was raised up from 
the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we 
also should walk in newness of life’’ (Rom. 6: 
3, 4). Baptism is the monogram of the Christian ; 
by it every believer is sealed and certified as a 
participant in the death and life of Christ ; and 
the Holy Spirit has been given to be the Executor 
of the contract thus made at the symbolic grave of 
Christ. 

In considering the great fact of the believer's 
death in Christ to sin and the law, we must not 
confound what the Scriptures clearly distinguish. 
There are three deaths in which we have part: 

1. Death in sin, our natural condition. 

2. Death for sin, our judicial condition. 

3. Death to sin, our sanctified condition. 

1. Death in sin. ‘‘And you . . . who 


THE COMMUNION OF THE SPIRIT II5 


’ 


were dead in trespasses and sins,’’ ‘‘ And you 
being dead in your sins’’ (Eph. 2:1; Col. 2:13). 
This is the condition in which we are by nature, 
as participants in the fall and ruin into which the 
transgression of our first parents has plunged the 
race. It is a condition in which we are under 
moral insensibility to the claims of God's holiness 
and love; and under the sentence of eternal 
punishment from the law which we have broken. 
In this state of death in sin Christ found the whole 
world when he came to be our Saviour. 

2. Death for sin. ‘‘ Wherefore, my brethren, 
ye also are become dead to the law by the body 
of Christ’? (Rom. 7: 4). This is the condition 
into which Christ brought us by his sacrifice upon 
the cross. He endured the sentence of a violated 
law on our behalf, and therefore we are counted 
as having endured it in him. What he did for us 
is reckoned as having been done by us: ‘‘ Because 
we thus judge, that one died for all, therefore all 
died. A27Cor: )5istApukeny +) Being? one, with 
Christ through faith, we are identified with him on 
the cross: ‘‘I have been crucified with Christ’”’ 
(Gal. 2: 20, R. V.). This condition of death for 
sin having been effected for us by our Saviour, we 
are held legally or judicially free from the penalty 
of a violated law, if by our personal faith we will 
consent to the transaction. 

3. Death to sin. ‘‘Even so reckon ye also 
yourselves to be dead unto sin, but alive unto God 
in Christ Jesus’’ (Rom. 6: 11, R. V.). This is 
the condition of making true in ourselves what is 


116 THE MINISTRY OF THE SPIRIT 


already true for us in Christ, of rendering practi- 
cal what is now judicial ; in other words, of being 
dead to the power of sin in ourselves, as we are 
already dead to the penalty of sin through Jesus 
Christ. As it is written in the Epistle to the Col- 
lossians: ‘‘For ye died,’’ judicially in Christ, 
‘‘mortify’’—make dead _practically—‘ therefore 
your members which are upon the earth’’ (Col. 3: 
2,5, R. V.). It is this condition which the Holy 
Spirit is constantly effecting in us if we will haye 
itso. ‘‘If ye through the Spirit do mortify the 
deeds of the body ye shall live’’ (Rom. 8 : 13). 
This is not self-deadening, as the Revised Version 
seems to suggest by its decapitalizing of the word 
‘‘Spirit.’’ Self is not powerful enough to conquer 
self, the human spirit to get the victory over the 
human flesh. That were like a drowning man 
with his right hand laying hold on his left hand, 
only that both may sink beneath the waves. ‘Old 
Adam is too strong for young Melancthon,’’ said 
the Reformer. It is the Spirit of God overcoming 
our fleshly nature by his indwelling life, on whom 
is our sole dependence. Our principal care there- 
fore must be to ‘‘ walkin the Spirit’’ and ‘be 
filled with the Spirit,’’ and all the rest will come 
spontaneously and inevitably. As the ascending 
sap in the tree crowds off the dead leaves which in 
spite of storm and frost cling to the branches all 
winter long, so does the Holy Ghost within us, 
when allowed full sway, subdue and expel the 
remnants of our sinful nature. 

One cannot fail to see that asceticism is an 


THE COMMUNION OF THE SPIRIT Pl? 


absolute inversion of the Divine order, since it 
seeks life through death instead of finding death 
through life. No degree of mortification can ever 
bring us to sanctification. We are to ‘‘ put off 
the old man with his deeds.’’ But how? By 
‘‘putting on the new man who is renewed in 
knowledge after the image of him that created 
Hitseee Phoruthes lawsot. the -opinte of lifesin 
Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of 
sin and death’’ (Rom. 8 : 2), writes Paul. It is 
a pointed statement of the case which one makes 
in describing the transition from the old to the new 
in his own experience, from the former life of per- 
petual defeat to the present life of victory through 
Christ. ‘‘Once it was a constant breaking off, 
now it is a daily bringing in,’’ he says. That is, 
the former striving was directed to being rid of 
the inveterate habits and evil tendencies of the 
old nature—its selfishness, its pride, its lust, and 
its vanity. Now the effortis to bring in the Spirit, 
to drink in his divine presence, to breathe, as a 
holy atmosphere, his supernatural life. The 
indwelling of the Spirit can alone effect the exclu- 
sion of sin. This will appear if we consider what 
has been called ‘‘the expulsive power of a new 
affection.’’ ‘‘Love not the world, neither the 
things that are in the world,”’ says the Scripture. 
But all experience proves that loving not is only 
possible through loving, the worldly affection being 
overcome by the heavenly. 

And we find this method clearly exhibited in 
the word. ‘‘ The love of the Spirit ’’ (Rom. 15 : 30) 


118 THE MINISTRY OF THE SPIRIT 


is given us for overcoming the world. The 
divine life is the source of the divine love. There- 
fore ‘‘the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts 
by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.”’ 
Because we are by nature so wholly without 
heavenly affection, God, through the indwelling 
Spirit, gives us his own love with which to love 
himself. Herein is the highest credential of dis- 
cipleship : ‘‘ By this shall all men know that ye 
are my disciples, if ye have love one to another ’’ 
(John 13: 35). As Christ manifested to the world 
the love of the Father, so are we to manifest the 
love of Christ—a manifestation, however, which is 
only possible because of our possessorship of a 
common life. As one has truly said concerning 
our Saviour’s command to his disciples to love one 
another: ‘‘It is a command which would be 
utterly idle and futile were it not that he, the ever- 
loving One, is willing to put his own love within 
me. The command is really no more than to be 
a branch of the true vine. I am to cease from my 
own living and loving, and yield myself to the 
expression of Christ’s love."’ 

And what is true of the love of Christ is true 
of the likeness of Christ. How is the likeness 
acquired? Through contemplation and imitation ? 
So some have taught. And it is true, if only the 
indwelling Spirit is behind all, beneath all, and 
effectually operative in all. As it is written: 
‘‘But we all with unveiled face, reflecting as a 
mirror the glory of the Lord, are transformed into 
the same image from glory to glory, even as from 


THE COMMUNION OF THE SPIRIT IIlg 


the Lord)\the Spirit’ (2 Cor. 37:18, R.’V.). ! It 
is only the Spirit of the Lord dwelling within us 
that can fashion us to the image of the Lord set 
before us. Who is sufficient by external imitation 
of Christ to become conformed to the likeness of 
Christ? Imagine one without genius and devoid 
of the artist’s training, sitting down before 
Raphael's famous picture of the Transfiguration 
and attempting to reproduce it. How crude and 
mechanical and lifeless his work would be! But 
if such a thing were possible that the spirit of 
Raphael should enter into the man and obtain the 
mastery of his mind and eye and hand, it would 
be entirely possible that he should paint this 
masterpiece; for it would simply be Raphael 
reproducing Raphael. And this in a mystery is 
what is true of the disciple filled with the Holy 
Ghost. Christ, who is ‘‘the image of the invis- 
ible God,’’ is set before him as his divine pattern, 
and Christ by the Spirit dwells within him as a 
- divine life, and Christ is able to image forth 
Christ from the interior life to the outward example. 

Of course, likeness to Christ is but another 
name for holiness, and when, at the resurrection, 
we awake satisfied with his likeness (Ps. 17 : 15), 
we shall be perfected in holiness. This is simply 
saying that sanctification is progressive and not, 
like conversion, instantaneous. And yet we must 
admit the force of what a devout and thoughtful 
writer says as to the danger of regarding it as 
only a gradual growth. If a Christian looks upon 
himself as ‘‘a tree planted by the rivers of water 


120 THE MINISTRY OF THE, SPIRIT 


that bringeth forth his fruit in his season,’’ he 
judges rightly. But to conclude therefore that 
his growth will be as irrestible as that of the tree, 
coming as a matter of course simply because he 
has by regeneration been planted in Christ, is a 
grave mistake. The disciple is required to be 
consciously and intelligently active in his own 
growth, as a tree is not, ‘‘to give all diligence to 
make his calling and election sure.’’ And when 
we say ‘‘active’’ we do not mean self-active 
merely, for ‘‘which of you by being anxious can 
add one cubit unto his stature ?’’ asks Jesus (Matt. 
6:27, R. V.). But we must surrender ourselves 
to the divine action by living in the Spirit and 
praying in the Spirit and walking in the Spirit, all 
of which conditions are as essential to our develop- 
ment in holiness, as the rain and the sunshine are 
to the growth of the oak. It is possible that 
through a neglect and grieving of the Spirit a 
Christian may be of smaller stature in his age than 
he was in his spiritual infancy, his progress being 
a retrogression rather than an advance. There- 
fore in saying that sanctification is progressive let 
us beware of concluding that it is inevitable. 
Moreover, as candid inquirers, we must ask 
what of truth and of error there may be in the 
doctrine of ‘‘ instantaneous sanctification,’’ which 
many devout persons teach and profess to have 
proved. If the conception is that of a state of 
sinless perfection into which the believer has been 
suddenly lifted and of deliverance from a sinful 
nature which has been suddenly eradicted, we 


THE COMMUNION OF THE SPIRIT IZI 


must consider this doctrine as dangerously untrue. 
But we do consider it possible that one may 
experience a great crisis in his spiritual life, in 
which there is such a total self-surrender to God 
and such an infilling of the Holy Spirit, that he 
is freed from the bondage of sinful appetites and 
habits, and enabled to have constant victory over 
self, instead of suffering constant defeat. In say- 
ing this, what more do we affirm than is taught in 
that scripture: ‘‘ Walk in the Spirit and ye shall 
not fulfill the lust of the flesh’’ (Gal. 5 : 16). 
Divine truth as revealed in Scripture seems 
often to lie between two extremes. It is emphat- 
ically so in regard to this question. What a 
paradox it is that side by side in the Epistle of 
John we should have the strongest affirmation of 
the Christian’s sinfulness: ‘‘If we say that we 
have no sin we deceive ourselves, and the truth 
is not in us’’; and the strongest affirmation of. 
his sinlessness : ‘‘ Whosoever is born of God doth 
not commit sin, for his seed remaineth in him, 
and he cannot sin because he is born of God”’ (1 
John 1:8; 3: 9). Now heresy means a divid- 
ing or choosing, and almost all of the gravest 
errors have arisen from adopting some extreme 
statement of Scripture to the rejection of the 
other extreme. If we regard the doctrine of sin- 
iess perfection as a heresy, we regard contentment 
with sinful imperfection as a greater heresy. And 
we gravely fear that many Christians make the 
apostle’s words, ‘‘If we say we have no sin we 
deceive ourselves,’’ the unconscious justification 


122 THE MINISTRY OF THE SPIRIT 


for a low standard of Christian living. It were 
almost better for one to overstate the possibilities 
of sanctification in his eager grasp after holiness, 
than to understate them in his complacent satis- 
faction with a traditional unholiness. Certainly 
it is not an edifying spectacle to see a Chris- 
tian worldling throwing stones at a Christian 
perfectionist. 

What then would be a true statement of the 
doctrine which we are considering, one which 
would embrace both extremes of statement as 
they appear in the Epistle of John? Sinful in 
self, sinless in Christ—is our answer : ‘‘In him is 
no sin; whosoever abideth in him sinneth not’’ 
(1 John 3: 5, 6). If through the communication 
of the Holy Spirit the life of Christ is constantly 
imparted to us, that life will prevail within us. 
That life is absolutely sinless, as incapable of 
defilement as the sunbeam which has its fount 
and origin in the sun. In proportion to the close- 
ness of our abiding in him will be the complete- 
hess of our deliverance from sinning. And we 
doubt not that there are Christians who have 
yielded themselves to God in such absolute sur- 
render, and who through the upholding power of 
the Spirit have been so kept in that condition of 
surrender, that sin has not had dominion over 
them. If in them the war between the flesh and 
the spirit has not been forever ended, there has 
been present victory in which troublesome sins 
have ceased from their assaults, and ‘the ‘peace 
of God’’ has ruled in the heart. 


THE COMMUNION OF THE SPIRIT 123 


But sinning is one thing and a sinful nature is 
another ; and we see no evidence in Scripture 
that the latter is ever eradicated completely while 
we are in the body. If we could see ourselves 
with God’s eye, we should doubtless discover sin- 
fulness lying beneath our most joyful moments of 
unsinning conduct, and the stain of our old and 
fallen nature so discoloring our whitest actions as 
to convince us that we are not yet faultless in his 
presence. Only let us gladly emphasize this fact, 
that as we inherit from Adam a nature incapable 
of sinlessness, we inherit from Christ a nature incap- 
able of sinfulness. Therefore, it is written : ‘‘Who- 
soever is born of God cannot sin, for his seed 
remaineth in him. It is not the nature of the 
new nature to sin ; it is not the law of ‘‘the law 
of the Spirit of life’’ to transgress. For the new- 


” 


born man to do evil is to transgress the law of his 
nature as before it was to obey it. In a word, 
before our regeneration we lived in sin and loved 
it; since our regeneration we may lapse into sin 
but we loathe it. 

3. The Spirit of Glory: Our Transfiguration. 
‘‘The Spirit of glory and of God resteth upon 
you,’’ writes Peter (1 Peter 4: 14). Let us recall 
this apostle’s habit of dividing the stages of 
redemption into these two, ‘‘the sufferings of 
Christ and the glory that should follow,’’ in which 
he seems to conceive of our Lord’s mystical body, 
the church, as passing through and reproducing 
the twofold experience of its Head, in humiliation 
and in subsequent exaltation. Even in the time 


124 THE MINISTRY OF THE SPIRIT 


of her humiliation she has the Spirit of glory abid- 
ing on her, as the cloud of glory rested down upon 
the tabernacle in the wilderness during all the pil- 
grimage of the children of Israel. And is not 
Peter’s saying the same as Paul's, in his picture 
of the suffering creation: ‘‘ But ourselves also, 
which have the first-fruits of the Spirit, even we 
ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the 
adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body’ 
(Rom. 8: 23). Not yet have we reached the con- 
summation of our hope, at the ‘‘ appearing of the 
glory of our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ ’’ 
(Titus 2 7°%13;) R. V2) 7 but, the eSpiritethrougn 
whose inworking power this great change is to be 
wrought, already dwells in us, giving us by his 
present quickening the pledge and earnest of our 
final glory. And so we read in another Scripture : 
‘* But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from 
the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ 
from the dead shall.also quicken your mortal 
bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you’’ (Rom. 
8: 11). Itis not our dead bodies which are here 
spoken of as the objects of the Spirit’s quickening, 
but our mortal bodies—bodies liable to death and 
doomed to death if the Lord tarry, but not yet 
haying experienced death. Hence the quicken- 
ing referred to has to do rather with the vivifying 
of the living saints than the resurrection of the 
dead saints. 

Of course the consummation of this vivifying is 
at the Lord’s coming, when those who have died 
shall be raised, and those who are alive shall be 


THE COMMUNION OF THE 5PIRIT 125 


transfigured; but because of the Spirit of life 
dwelling in us, who shall say that the process has 
not even now begun? To explain: ‘‘ Behold I 
shew you a mystery,’’ says Paul ; ‘‘ we shall not 
all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a 
moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last 
PN eC OF IS! heh, Pet) Ate Habrisnas at 
Christ’s coming the dead saints will be raised, so 
the living saints will be translated without seeing 
death. A change will come to them, so far as we 
can understand, like that which came to Jesus at 
his resurrection—the body glorified, all of mortal 
and earthly belonging to it by nature eliminated 
in an instant, and the Holy Ghost so completely 
transforming and immortalizing it that it shall 
become perfectly fashioned to the likeness of 
Christ’s glorified body. But having the Spirit 
dwelling in us we have, even now, the first-fruits 
of this transformation in the daily renewing of our 
inward man, in the helping and healing and 
strengthening which, sometimes comes to our 
bodies through the hidden life of the Holy Ghost. 
Sanctification is progressive, waiting to be con- 
summated in the future ; so is glorification in some 
“sense progressive, since by the presence of the 
Spirit we already have the earnest of the glory 
that is to be. As Edward Irving beautifully states 
it, condensing his language: ‘‘ As sickness is sin 
apparent in the body, the presentiment of death, 
the forerunner of corruption, and as disease of 
every kind is mortality begun, so the quickening 
of our mortal bodies by the inward inspiration of 


126 THE MINISERY OF “fHE SPIRIg 


the Spirit is the resurrection forestalled, redemp- 
tion anticipated, glory begun in our humiliation.”’ 

When is sanctification completed? At death, 
is the answer which we find given in some creeds 
and manuals of theology. This may be true; 
but we say it not, because the Scripture saith it 
not. So far as we can infer from the word of God 
the date of our sanctification or perfection in holi- 
ness is definitely fixed at the appearing of the 
Lord ‘‘a second time without sin unto salvation.”’ 
Our sanctification, now going on, is glory begun 
in us; our glorification then ushered in will be 
glory completed in us. The Spirit of glory now 
working in us brings forward and _ already 
works within us the beginning of the perfect life. 
Because we have been made ‘‘ partakers of the 
Holy Ghost’’ we have thereby ‘‘ tasted the powers 
of the age'to come *’{(Heb..6: 4, 5)-R> V-),ethar 
age of complete deliverance from sin and sickness 
and death. But at most we have only tasted as 
yet ; we have not drunk fully into the fountain of 
immortal life. It is at Christ’s advent that this 
blessed consummation is fixed: ‘‘ To the end he 
may establish your hearts unblamable in holiness 
before our God and Father at the coming of our 
Lord Jesus with all his saints’’ (1 Thess. 3: 13, 
R.' V.). Not simply blameless but faultless, 
seems to be the condition here foretold, since it is 
unblamable in the sphere and element of holiness. 

And with this agrees another text in the same 
epistle : ‘‘ And the God of peace himself sanctity 
you wholly ; and may your spirit and soul and 


THE COMMUNION OF THE SPIRIT 127 


body be preserved entire without blame af the 
coming of our Lord Jesus Christ’’ (1 Thess. 5 : 23, 
R. V.). The time appointed for the consumma- 
tion of this blameless wholeness is at the Saviour’s 
advent in glory. And how suggestive the order 
maintained in naming the threefold man: ‘‘ Your 
spirit, soul, and body.’’ Our sanctification moves 
from within outward. It begins with the spirit, 
which is the holy of holies; the Spirit of God 
acting first on the spirit of man in renewing grace, 
then upon the soul, till at last it reaches the outer 
court of the body, at the resurrection and transla- 
tion. When the body is glorified, then only will 
sanctification be consummated, for then only will 
the whole man, spirit, soul, and body, have come 
under the Spirit's perfecting power. 

We may see the difference between progressive 
sanctification and perfected sanctification, or glori- 
fication, by comparing familiar texts. One already 
has been quoted inthis chapter: ‘‘ Weall, behold- 
ing as ina glass the glory of the Lerd, are changed 
into the same image from glory to glory, even as 
byathe Spirit of the Lord,’),(2!.Cor.233718).. Here 
are degrees of progress ‘‘from glory to glory,’’ 
and it is a progress in the glorified life—gradual 
conformity to the Lord of glory, through succes- 
sive stages of glory, effected by the Spirit of 
glory. The word-painting of the passage inevi- 
tably associates it in our thought with the great 
transfiguration experience of our Lord, when by a 
kind of rapture he was for a little while taken out 
of ‘‘this present evil age’’ (Gal. 1 : 4), and trans- 


128 THE MINISTRY OF THE SPIRIT 


lated into ‘‘ the age to come,’’ and made to taste 
of its powers as he appeared in glory ’’ (Heb. 6: 
5, R. V.). So says the apostle: ‘‘Be not 
fashioned according to this age, but be ye trans- 
formed by the renewing of your minds’’ (Rom. 
12:2, R.V.). That is, by his inward’ trans- 
formation the Holy Spirit is to sbe daily repeating 
in us the Lord’s glorification, separating us from 
the present age of sin and death and assimilating 
us to the age to come, with its resurrection triumph 
and its’ perfected restoration to God, when we 
shall be presented ‘‘ faultless before the presence 
of his glory with exceeding joy’’ (Jude 24). This 
is our step-by-step advancement into a predestined 
inheritance ; and it must for the present be step 
by step. ‘‘ Of his fullness have all we received,”’ 
but we can appropriate that fullness only ‘grace 
by grace’’ (John 1 : 16). Of his righteousness 
we have all been made partakers, but we only 
advance in its possession ‘‘from faith to faith’’ 
(Rom. 1 : 17). Even in passing through the 
valley of Baca we can make it a place of springs, 
going ‘‘from strength to strength’’ as we appear 
‘‘before God in Zion’’ (Ps. 84: 6). Thus our 
growth in grace is our glory begun ; but the prog- 
ress is like the artist’s slow and patient perfect- 
ing of his picture. Turn now to another state- 
ment : ‘‘ We know that if he shall be manifested 
we shall be like him, for we shall see him even as 
he is’’ (1 John 3: 2, R. V.). Whatever difficulty 
may arise from another translation of this passage, 
one thought seems to be taught in the entire con- 


THE COMMUNION OF THE SPIRIT 129 


nection, viz., that the unveiled manifestation of 
God will bring the full perfection of his saints. 
Thus Alford sums up the meaning of the passage. 
As the believer, having by a knowledge of God 
been regenerated, ‘‘ becomes more and more like 
God, having his seed in him, so the full and per- 
fect accomplishment of this knowledge in the 
actual fruition of God himself must of necessity 
bring with it entire likeness to God.’’ Ina word, 
it seems to us that the sanctification taking place 
at the manifestation of our incarnate Lord will be 
as the instantaneous photograph compared with 
the Spirit’s slow and patient limning of the image 
of Christ in our present state. ‘‘In a moment, 
in the twinkling of an eye,’’ ‘‘we shall be 
changed’’ (1 Cor. 15 : 52). Then the glorified 
body and the glorified spirit, long divorced by sin, 
will be :emarried. So long as this twain are 
separated by death, or are at war in our present 
earthly life, our perfection in holiness were 
impossible. 

It is because the resurrection and translation 
of the saints are instantaneous that we affirm sanc- 
tification to be instantaneous at the coming of the 
Lord. The Scripture is always harmonious with 
itself, however widely separated the writers of its 
books by time or distance. David struck the same 
joyful note with John, though the learned may 
insist that he did not know of the resurrection. 
«© As for me, I shall behold thy face in righteous- 
ness ’’—the seeing him as he is and being made 


fitto see him. ‘‘I shall be satisfied when I awake 
9 


130 THE MINISTRY OF THE SPIRIT 


in thy likeness ’'—the conformity to the Divine 
image at the instant sound of the resurrection 
trump (Ps. 17 : 15). Perhaps we may conjec- 
ture wherein will consist the perfection of the res- 
urrection state. We may find it in that one say- 
ing: ‘‘It is raised a spiritual body ’’ (1 Cor. 15 : 
44). Now, how often the body dominates the 
spirit, making it do what it would not; but then, 
the spirit will dominate the body, making it do as 
it will. In a house divided against itself there can 
be neither perfection nor peace. Such is the con- 
dition in our present state of humiliation. And 
not the body alone, but the immaterial within us 
may be at war with the divine. What does the 
Apostle Jude mean in his description of certain 
who separated themselves, saying that they are 
“‘sensual, having not the Spirit ’’ (Jude 19). The 
‘soul, the middle factor in the man, if we may say 
so, instead of being in alliance with our higher 
nature, the spirit, takes sides with the lower, the 
flesh, so that instead of being spiritual we become 
‘‘earthly, sensual, devilish ’’ (James 3: 15). The 
whole man must be presented blameless at the 
coming of the Lord before we can enter upon a 
state of blessed perfection. Our spirit must not 
only rule our soul and our bedy but both these 
must be subject to the Holy Spirit of God. Dimly 
and imperfectly do we thus imagine to ourselves 
the perfection of our “‘ spiritual body.’’ Now the 
body bears the spirit, a slow chariot, whose wheels 
are often disabled, and whose swiftest motion is 
but labored and tardy. Then the spirit will bear 


THE COMMUNION OF THE SPIRIT 131 


the body, carrying it as on wings of thought 
whithersoever it will. The Holy Ghost, by his 
divine inworking will, has completed in us the 
Divine likeness, and perfected over us the Divine 
dominion. The human body will now be in sov- 
ereign subjection to the human spirit, and the 
human spirit to the divine Spirit, and God will be 
all and in all. 


Vil 


1HE ADMINISTRATION OF 
THE SPIRIT 


“The Holy Ghost from the day of Pentecost has 
occupied an entirely new position. The whole admin- 
istration of the affairs of the Church of Christ has 
since that day devolved upon him. . . That day 
was the installation of the Holy Spirit as the Admin- 
istrator of the Church in all things, which office he is 
to exercise according to circumstances at his discretion. 
It is as vested with such authority that he gives his 
name to this dispensation. . . There is but one 
other great event to which the Scripture directs us to 
look, and that is the second coming of the Lord. Till 
then we live in the Pentecostal age and under the 
rule of the Holy Ghost.” —/ames Elder Cumming, D. D. 

14 


— 


Vil 


THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE SPIRIT 


the place of the ascended Redeemer, 
| has rightly been called ‘‘ The Vicar of 
Jesus Christ.’’ To him the entire administration 
of the church has been committed until the Lord 
shall return in glory. His oversight extends to 
the slightest detail in the ordering of God’s house, 
holding all in subjection to the will of the Head, 
and directing all in harmony with the divine plan. 
How clearly this comes out in that passage in the 
twelfth chapter of First Corinthians. As in strik- 
ing a series of concentric circles there is always 
one fixed center holding each circumference in 
defined relation to itself, so here we see all the 
‘‘ diversities of administrations’’ determined by 
the one Administrator, the Holy Ghost. ‘‘ Varie- 
ties of gifts, but the same Spirit’’ ; ‘‘ diversities 
of working, but ¢he same God’’ , different words 
‘‘according to the same Spirit’’ ; ‘‘ gifts of faith 
in the same Spirit’’ ; ‘gifts of healing zz the one 
Spirit’’; miracles, prophecies, tongues, inter- 


pretations, ‘‘but all these worketh the one and 
135 


136 _ THE MINISTRY OF THE SPIRIT 


the same Spirit, dividing to each one severally as 
he will.’’ Whether the authority of this one rul- 
ing sovereign Holy Ghost be recognized or ignored 
determines whether the church shall be an anarchy 
or a unity, a synagogue of lawless ones or the 
temple of the living God. 

Would one desire to find the clue to the great 
apostasy whose dark eclipse now covers two-thirds 
of nominal Christendom, here it is—the rule and 
authority of the Holy Spirit ignored in the church ; 
the servants of the house assuming mastery and 
encroaching more and more on the prerogatives 
of the Head, till at last one man sets himself up 
as the administrator of the church, and daringly 
usurps the name of ‘‘ The Vicar of Christ.’’ When 
the Spirit of the Lord, speaking by Paul, would 
picture the mystery of lawlessness and the culmi- 
nation of apostasy, he gives us a description which 
none should misunderstand : ‘‘So that he, as God, 
sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that 
he is God’’ (2 Thess. 2: 4). What is the temple 
of God? The church without a question: ‘‘ Know 
ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the 
Spirit of God dwelleth in you?’’ (1 Cor. 3: 16). 
Whose prerogative is it to sit there? The Holy 
Ghost’s, its ruler and administrator, and his alone. 

When Christ, our Paraclete with the Father, 
entered upon his ministry on high, we are told 
more than a score of times that he ‘‘sat down at 
the right hand of God.’’ Henceforth heaven is 
his official seat, until he returns in power and 
great glory. When he sent down another Para- 


THE,ADMINISTRATION, OF THE SPIRIT 137 


clete to abide with us for the age, he took his seat 
in the church, the temple of God, there to rule and 
to administer till the Lord returns. There is but 
one ‘‘ Holy See’’ upon earth : that is, the seat of 
the Holy One in the church, which only the Spirit 
of God can occupy without the most daring blas- 
phemy. It becomes all true believers to look well 
to that picture of one ‘‘sitting in the temple of 
God,’’ and to read the lesson which it teaches. 
We may have no temptation toward the papacy, 
which thrusts a man into the seat of the Holy 
Ghost,’ or toward clerisy which obtrudes an order 
of ecclesiastics—archbishops, cardinals, and arch- 
deacons into that sacred place ; but let us remem- 
ber that a democracy may be guilty of the same 
sin as a heirarchy, in settling solemn issues by a 
‘‘show of hands,’’ instead of prayerfully waiting 
for the guidance of the Holy Spirit, in substituting 
the voice of a majority for the voice of the Spirit. 
Of course, in speaking thus we concede that the 
Holy Spirit makes known his will in the voice of 
believers, as also in the voice of Scripture. Only 

1 Of course Catholic writers claim that the pope is the “ Vicar 
of Christ’’ only as being the mouth-piece of the Holy Ghost. 
But the Spirit has been given to the church as a whole, that is 
to the body of regenerated believers, and to every member of 
that body according to his measure. The sin of sacerdotalism 
is, that it arrogates for a usurping few that which belongs to 
every member of Christ’s mystical body. It is a suggestive fact 
that the name kAnpoc, which Peter gives to the church as the 
“*flock of God,’? when warning the elders against being lords 
over God’s heritage, now appears in ecclesiastical usage as the 
clergy, with its orders of pontiff and prelates and lord bishops, 


whose appointed function it is to exercise lordship over Christ’s 
flock. 


138 THE MINISTRY OF THE SPIRIT 


there must be such prayerful sanctifying of the one 
and such prayerful search of the other, that in 
reaching decisions in the church there may be the 
same declaration as in the first Christian council : 
‘‘It seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us”’ 
(Acts 15°: 28). 

In some very profound teaching in 2 Cor. 3 | 
we seem to have a hint as to how we hear the 
voice of the Lord in guiding the affairs of the 
church. There the administration (d:axovia) of 
the Spirit is distinctly spoken of in contrast with 
the administration of the law. Its deliverances are 
written ‘‘ not with ink, not in tables of stone, but 
in the tables that are the hearts of flesh, with the 
Spirit of the living God’’ (R. V.). There must 
be a sensitive heart wherein this handwriting may 
be inscribed ; an unhindering will through which 
he may act. ‘‘ Where the Spirit of the Lord is, 
there is liberty,’’ it is written in the same passage ; 
liberty for God to speak and act as he will through 
us, which begets loyalty ; not liberty for us to act 
as we will, which begets lawlessness. 

To us there is something exceedingly sugges- 
tive in the teaching of the Lord's post-ascension 
gospel, the Revelation, on this point. The epistles 
to the seven churches we hold, with many of the 
best commentators, to be a prophetic setting forth 
of the successive stages of the church's history— 
its declines and its recoveries, its failures and its 
repentances, from ascension to advent. And 
because the bride of Christ is perpetually betrayed 
into listening to false teachers and surrendering 


THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE SPIRIT 139 


to the guidance of evil counsellors, the Lord is 
constantly admonishing her to heed the voice of 
her true Teacher and Guide, the Holy Ghost. 
How forcibly this admonition is introduced into 
the great Apocalyptic drama! As in the opening 
of the successive seals, representing the judg- 
ments of God upon apostate Christendom, the cry 
is' repeated (8 Come} 2 ' Come f’?)s! Comet! 
‘“Come!’’ (Rev. 6)—as though the church under 
chastisement would repeatedly relearn the advent 
prayer which her Lord put into her mouth in the 
beginning: ‘‘ Even so, come, Lord Jesus,’’ so at 
each stage of the church’s backsliding a voice is 
heard from heaven saying: ‘‘He that hath an 
ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the 
churches.’’ It is the admonition ‘‘of him that 
hath the seven spirits of God,’’ seven times 
addressed to his church throughout her earthly 
history, calling her to return from her false guides 
and misleading teachers, and to listen to the voice 
of her true Counsellor. 

From this general statement of the administra- 
tion of the Holy Spirit let us now descend to the 
particular acts and offices in which this authority 
is exercised. 

1. The Holy Spirit in the ministry and govern- 
ment of the church. In speaking to the elders of 
Ephesus Paul says: ‘‘ Take heed unto yourselves, 
and to all the flock in which the Holy Ghost hath 
made you bishops, to feed the church of God”’ 
(Acts 20: 28, R. V.). Clearly in the beginning 
bishops or pastors were given by the Spirit of 


140 THE MINISTRY OF THE SPIRIT 


God, not by the suffrages of the people. The 
office and its incumbent were alike by direct divine 
appointment. We find this distinctly set forth in 
the Epistle to the Ephesians : ‘‘ When he ascended 
on high, he led captivity captive, and gave gifts 
unto men. . . And he gave some to be apostles ; 
and some, prophets ; and some, evangelists; and 
some, pastors and teachers ; for the perfecting of 
the saints, unto the work of ministering, unto the 
building up of the body of Christ’’ (Eph. 4: 
8-12, R. V.). The ascent of the Lord and the 
descent of the Spirit are here exhibited in their 
necessary relation. In the one event Christ took 
his seat in heaven as ‘‘ Head over all things to his 
church’’; in the other the Holy Ghost came 
down to begin the work of ‘‘ building up the body 
of Christ.’’ Of course it is the Head who directs 
the construction of the body, as being “ fitly 
framed together it groweth into a holy temple in 
the Lord”’ ; and it is the Holy Ghost who super- 
intends this construction since ‘‘we are builded 
together for an habitation of God in the Spirit.’’ 
Therefore all the offices through which this work 
is to be carried on were appointed by Christ and 
instituted through the Spirit whom he sent down. 
Suppose now that men invent offices which are not 
named in the inspired list, and set up in the 
church an order of popes and cardinals, arch- 
bishops and archdeacons? Is it not a presump- 
tion, the worst fruit of which is not alone that it 
introduces confusion into the body of Christ, but 
that it begets insubordination to the rule of the 


THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE SPIRIT I4I 


Holy Ghost? But suppose, on the other hand, 
that we sacredly maintain those offices of the 
ministry which have been established for perma- 
nent continuance in the church, and yet take it 
upon us to fill these according to our own prefer- 
ence and will; is this any less an affront to the 
Spirit ? 

Doubtless the mistakes of God’s servants, as 
given in Scripture are as truly designed for our 
instruction and admonition as their obedient 
examples. We think we do not err in finding 
such a recorded warning in the opening chapter 
of the Acts of the Apostles. A vacancy had 
occurred in the apostolate. Standing up in the 
upper room, amidst the hundred and twenty, 
Peter boldly affirmed that this vacancy must be 
filled, and of the men who had companied with 
them during the Lord’s earthly ministry, ‘‘one 
must be ordained to be a witness with us of his 
resurrection.’’ But the disciples had hitherto 
had no voice in choosing apostles. The Lord 
had done this of his own sovereign will : ‘‘ Have 
I not chosen you twelve?’’ Now he had gone 
away into heaven, and his Administrator had not 
yet arrived to enter upon his office-work. Surely 
if the divine order was to be, that having 
‘‘ascended on high’’ he was ‘‘to give some 
apostles,’’ it were better to await the coming of 
the Paraclete with his gifts. Not only so, but we 
are persuaded that, with Christ departed and the 
Holy Spirit not yet come, a valid election of an 
apostle were impossible. But in spite of this, a 


{42 THE MINISTRY OF THE SPIRIT 


nomination was made; prayer was offered in 
which the Lord was asked to indicate which 
of the candidates he had chosen; and then 
a vote having been taken, Matthias was 
declared elected. Is there any indication that 
this choice was ever ratified by the Lord? 
On the contrary, Matthias passes into obscur- 
ity from this time, his name never again being 
mentioned. Some two years subsequent, the 
Lord calls Saul of Tarsus; he is sealed with 
his Spirit, and certified by such evident creden- 
tials of the Divine appointment that he boldly 
signs himself ‘‘ Paul, an apostle, ot of men, 
neither by man, but by Jesus Christ and God 
the Father’? (Gal. 1 : 1). 

We believe that the apostolic office has passed 
away, the qualification therefor, that of having been 
a witness of the Lord’s resurrection, being now 
impossible. But the office of pastor, elder, bishop, 
or teacher of the flock still remains. And the. 
divine plan is that this office should be filled, just 
as in the beginning, by the appointment of the 
Holy Ghost. Nor can we doubt that if there is a 
prayerful waiting upon him for guidance, and a 
sanctified submission to his will when it is made 
known, he will now choose pastors and set them 
over their appointed flocks just as manifestly as he 
did in the beginning. Very beautiful is the picture 
in Revelation of the glorified Lord, moving among 
the candlesticks. There are ‘‘seven golden 
candlesticks ’’ now, not one only as in the Jewish 
temple. The Church of God is manifold, not a 


THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE SPIRIT 143 


unit.! He who ‘‘walketh in the midst of the 


seven golden candlesticks ’’ ‘‘holdeth the seven 
stars in his right hand.’’ These stars are ‘‘ the 
angels of the seven churches ’’—their ministers or 


bishops as generally understood. The Lord holds 
them in his right hand. Does he not require us 
to ask of him alone for their bestowal? Yes. 
‘‘Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that 
he would send forth laborers into his harvest’’ 
(Luke 10: 2). There is no intimation in Scrip- 
ture that we are to apply anywhere but to him for 
the ministry of his church. Does he not give 
such ministry, and he alone? Yes. ‘‘ When he 
ascended on high . . . he gave some 

pastors and teachers.’’ And now, speaking to 
the church in Ephesus, the elders of which, 
chosen by the Holy Ghost, Paul had so affection- 
ately exhorted, he is seen in the attitude of Chief- 
shepherd and Bishop—giving pastors with his own 
hand ; placing them with his own right hand, and 
warning the church that though they have tried 
and rejected false apostles, they have nevertheless 
left their ‘‘ first love.’’ Significant word! On 
this love our Lord conditioned the indwelling of 
the Father and of the Son through the Holy Spirit 
(John 14:23). Losing this the peril becomes 
imminent that the candlestick may be removed 


1 By the candlesticks being seven instead cof one, as in the 
tabernacle, we are taught that whe eas in the Jewish dispensa- 
tion, God’s visible church was one, in the Gentile dispensation 
there are many visible churches; and that Christ himself recog- 
nizes them alike.—Canon Garratt, ‘‘ Commentary on the 
Revelation,’ p. 32. 


144 THE MINISTRY ‘OF THE SPIRIT 


out of its place ; and so the warning is solemnly 
announced: ‘‘ He that hath an ear, let him hear 
what the Spirit saith unto the churches.’’ With- 
out the Spirit the candlestick can shed forth no 
light, and loses its place of testimony. 

Dead churches, whose witness has been 
silenced, whose place has been vacated, even 
though the lifeless form remains, have we not seen 
such? And what is the safeguard against them, 
if not that found in the apostle’s warning: 
‘Quench not the Spirit’? ? The voice of the 
Lord must be heard in his church, and to the 
Holy Ghost alone has been committed the prerog- 
ative of communicating that voice. Is there any 
likelihood that that voice will be heard when the 
king or prime minister of a civil government 
holds the sole function of appointing the bishops, 
as in the case of State churches? Is there any 
certainty of it when an archbishop or bishop puts 
pastors over flocks by the action of his single will ? 
We may congratulate ourselves that we are neither 
in a State church nor under an episcopal bishop ; 
but there are methods of ignoring or repressing 
the voice of the Holy Ghost, which though simpler 
and far less apparent than those just indicated, are 
no less violent. The humble and godly member- 
ship of the little church may turn to some pastor, 
after much prayer and waiting on God for the 
Spirit's guidance, and the signs of the divine 
choice may be clearly manifest; when some 
pulpit committee, or some conclave of ‘leading 
brethren,’’ vetoes their action on the ground, per- 


THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE SPIRIT 145 


chance, that the candidate is not popular and will 
not draw. Alas! for the little flock so lorded 
over that the voice of the Holy Ghost cannot be 
heard. 

And majorities are no more to be depended 
upon than minorities, if there is in both cases a 
neglect of patient and prolonged waiting upon the 
Lord to know his will. Of what value is a ‘‘ show 
of hands’’ unless his are stretched out ‘‘ who 
holdeth the seven stars in his right hand’’? Of 
what use is a vzva voce choice, except the living 
voice of Christ be heard speaking by his Spirit ? 
One may object that we are holding up an ideal 
which is impossible to be realized. It is a diffi- 
cult ideal we admit, as the highest attainments are 
always difficult ; but it is not an impossible one. 
It is easier to recite our prayers from a book than 
to read them from the tables of a prepared heart, 
where the finger of the Spirit has silently written 
them; but the more difficult way is the more 
acceptable way to him who seeks for worshipers 
who ‘‘ worship in Spirit and in truth.’’ It is easier 
to get ‘‘ the sense of the meeting ’’ in choosing a 
pastor than to learn ‘‘ the mind of the Spirit ’’ by 
patient tarrying and humble surrender to God ; 
but the more laborious way will certainly prove 
the more profitable way. The failure to take this 
way is, we are persuaded, the cause of more decay 
and spiritual death in the churches than we have 
yet imagined. From the watch-tower where we 
write we can look out on half a score of churches 


on which ‘‘ Ichabod’ has been evidently written, 
10 


146 THE MINISTRY OF THE SPIRIT 


and the glory of which has long since departed. 
They were founded in prayer and consecration, 
‘‘to serve the living and true God, and to wait 
for his Son from heaven.’’ Why has their light 
been extinguished, though the lampstand which > 
once bore it still remains, adorned and beautified 
with all that the highest art and architecture can 
suggest? Their history is known to him who 
walks among the golden candlesticks. What 
violence may have been done, by headstrong 
self-will, to him who is called ‘the Spirit of 
counsel and might’’? What rejection of the 
truth which he, ‘‘the Spirit of truth,” has 
appointed for the faith of God’s church till at 
last the word has been spoken: ‘Ye do always 
resist the Holy Ghost ; as your fathers did, so do 
ye.’’ Is it only Jewish worshipers to whom these 
words apply? Is it only a Jewish temple of which 
this sentence is true: ‘‘ Behold your house is left 
unto you desolate’’? The Spirit will not be 
entirely withdrawn from the body of Christ indeed, 
but there is the Church, and there are churches. 
A man may yet live and breathe when cell after 
cell has been closed by congestion till at last he 
only inhales and exhales with a little portion of 
one lung. Let him that readeth understand. 

The Spirit is the breath of God in the body of 
his church. While that divine body survives and 
must, multitudes of churches have so shut out the 
Spirit from rule and authority and supremacy in 
the midst of them that the ascended Lord can only 
Say tothem: ‘‘ Thou hast a name to live and art 


THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE SPIRIT 147 


dead.’’ Ina word, so vital and indispensable is 
the ministry of the Spirit, that without it nothing 
else will avail. Some trust in creeds, and some 
in ordinances; some suppose that the church's 
security lies in a sound theology, and others locate 
it in a primitive simplicity of government and 
worship ; but it lies in none of these, desirable as 
they are. The body may be as to its organs per- 
fect and entire, wanting nothing; but simply 
because the Spirit has been withdrawn from it, it 
has passed from a church into a corpse. As one 
has powerfully stated it: ‘‘ When the Holy Spirit 
withdraws, . . . he sometimes allows the forms 
which he has created to remain. The oil is 
exhausted, but the lamp is still there ; prayer is 
offered and the Bible read ; church-going is not 
given up, and to a certain degree the service is 
enjoyed ; in a word religious habits are preserved, 
and like the corpses found at Pompeii, which were 
in a perfect state of preservation and in the very 
position in which death had surprised them, but 
which were reduced to ashes by contact with the 
air, so the blast of trial, of temptation, or of final 
judgment will destroy these spiritual corpses.”’ * 
2. The Holy Spirit in the Worship and Service 
of the Church. Is there anything, from highest to 
lowest, which we are called to do in connection 
with the worship of God’s house, of which the 
Holy Spirit is not the appointed agent? Believers 
are the instruments indeed through which he acts ; 


TG ae nae ee ee AE BS aes Oe tse eee 
1“ The Work of the Holy Spirit in Man,’’ by Pastor G, F, 
Tophel, p. 66. 


148 THE MINISTRY OF THE SPIRIT 


but they have no function apart from his inspira- 
tion and guidance, any more than the organ-pipe 
has without the wind, which breathing through it 
causes it to resound. To make this clear we 
may consider the several parts of the service 
of the church as we are accustomed to partici- 
pate in it, and observe their relation to the divine 
Administrator. 

(1) Preaching is by general consent an impor- 
tant factor of the work of the ministry, both for 
the pastor and for the evangelist. In what con- 
sists its inspiration and authority? We ‘have 
preached the gospel unto you wth the floly Ghost 
sent down from heaven”’ (1s Peterjer = 12), is 
Peter’s simple story of the apostolic method. And 
the words direct our thought to the Spirit not as 
instrumental but as inspiring. “Jz the floly 
Ghost,’’ the words mean literally. The true 
preacher does not simply use the Spirit ; he is 
used by the Spirit. He speaks as one moving in 
the element and atmosphere of the Holy Ghost, 
and mastered by his divine power. 

In this fact the sermon differs immeasurably 
from the speech, and the preacher from the 
orator. How distinctly Paul emphasizes this con- 
trast in his letter to the Corinthians (1eCor\2ast4). 
The sole substance of his preaching he declares 
to be ‘‘ Jesus Christ and him crucified,’’ and the 
sole inspiration of his preaching, the Holy Ghost : 
‘‘And my speech was _ not with enticing words of 
man’s wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit 
and power.’’ What did good Philip Henry mean 


THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE SPIRIT 149 


by his resolve ‘‘to preach Christ crucified in a 
crucified style’’ ? More perhaps than he thought 
or knew. ‘‘He shall testify of me,’’ is Jesus’ 
saying concerning the promised Paraclete. The 
Comforter bears witness to the Crucified. No 
other theme in the pulpit can be sure of command- 
ing his co-operation. Philosophy, poetry, art, 
literature, sociology, ethics, and history are attrac- 
tive subjects to many minds, and they who handle 
such themes in the pulpit may set them forth with 
alluring words of human genius; but there is no 
certainty that the Holy Ghost will accompany 
their presentation with his divine attestation. The 
preaching of the Cross, in chastened simplicity 
of speech, has the demonstration of the Spirit 
pledged to it, as no secular, or moral, or even 
formal religious discourse has. And when Paul 
writes to the Thessalonians: ‘‘ Our gospel came 
not unto you in word only, but also zz ower and 
in the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance’’ (1 
Thess. 1 : 5), we need only to be reminded that 
‘‘our gospel’’ meant but one thing to Paul, the 
setting forth of Jesus Christ crucified in the midst 
of the people, and we have found the secret of 
evangelical power. Ought it not therefore to be 
the supreme question with the preacher, what 
themes can assuredly command the witness of the 
Holy Spirit, rather than what topics will enlist the 
attention of the people? Let us set the popular 
preacher and the apostolic preacher side by side, 
and consider whose reward we would choose, uni- 
versal admiration or ‘‘God also bearing witness, 


150 THE MINISTRY OF THE SPIRIT 


both with signs and wonders and with divers 
miracles, and gifts of the Holy Ghost, according 
to his will’’ (Heb. 2: 4)—the sermon greeted 
_ with applause and the clapping of hands, or ‘‘the 
word received with joy of the Holy Ghost’’ (1 
Thess. 1 : 6) ?—admiration of the preacher pos- 
sessing all who listen to the discourse, or ‘‘ the 
floly Ghost fell on all them which heard the 
word’’ (Acts 10 : 44)? Language cannot express 
the vital moment of the question which we are here 
discussing. Our generation is rapidly losing its 
grip upon the supernatural; andasa consequence 
the pulpit is rapidly dropping to the level of the 
platform. And this decline is due, we believe, 
more than anything else, to an ignoring of the 
Holy Spirit as the supreme inspirer of preaching. 
We wish to see a great orator in the pulpit, for- 
getting that the least expounder of the word, when 
filled with the Holy Ghost, is greater than he. 
We want the gospel, forsooth ; but in the strenu- 
ous demand that it be set forth according to the 
‘* spirit of the age ’’ we ignore the supremacy of 
the ‘Spirit of God.’’ And the method of dis- 
course soon tells upon the matter. We cannot 
very long have the truth in the pulpit after we 
have lost ‘‘the Spirit of truth’’ therefrom. 
‘‘ When one possesses not the whole of life,’’ says 
Vinet, ‘‘ he possesses not the whole of truth.’’ 

In all that we have said we do not ignore the 
human element in preaching, nor undervalue good 
learning and sanctified mental training, as a fur- 
nishing for this high office. We only emphasize 


THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE SPIRIT I51 


the extreme peril of making that supreme which 
God has made subordinate. As it is genius which 
raises the great painter or poet far above the com- 
mon man, so it is the Holy Spirit which lifts the 
preacher far above the man of genius. A gifted 
artist spoke wisely when one, thinking only of the 
implements of his profession, asked, ‘‘ With what 
do you mix your paints?’’ ‘* With brains, Sit} 4; 
he replied. The preacher who brought three 
thousand to believe on a crucified Christ, under a 
single sermon, anticipated the question of those 
who, with an eye upon the mere human accessories 
of his sermon, might ask after the secret of his 
power ; and he unfolds that secret in a single 
terse sentence : ‘‘ With the Holy Ghost sent down 
from heaven.”’ 

(2) Prayer is a most vital element in the wor- 
ship of God’s church. ‘‘Lord, teach us how to 
pray, as John also taught his disciples.’’ Jesus 
complied literally with this request of his fol- 
lowers. As John, under the law, could only give 
rules and rudiments, not yet having come to the 
dispensation of grace and of the Spirit, so did 
Jesus give a form of prayer, a lesson in the 
‘technique of worship.’’ But only when he 
reaches the eve of his passion, when he announces 
the coming of the Comforter, does he lead fF. 
disciples into the heart and mystery of the great 
theme, teaching them to pray as John could not 
have taught his disciples. ‘‘ Hitherto ye have 
asked nothing in my name,”’ said Jesus, in his 
paschal discourse. But now that he was about to 


152 THE MINISTRY OF THE SPIRIT 


enter into his mediatorial office at God’s right 
hand, and to send forth the Comforter into the 
midst of his disciples, this joyful privilege was to 
be accorded to him: ‘‘ Whatsoever ye shall ask 
the Father zz my name he will give it you’’! 
(John 16 : 23). The words are equivalent to ‘‘ 2 
me.’’ The thought is not surely that of using the 
name of Jesus as a password or as a talisman, but 
of entering into his person and appropriating his 
will ; so that when we pray, it shall be as though 
Jesus himself stood in God’s presence and made 
intercession. Nor is it ‘‘as though’’—it is the 
literal fact. We become identified with Christ 
through the Spirit, now sent down, and his will 
is wrought within us by the Holy Ghost, so that to 
ask what we desire of him is to ask what he 
desires for us. We are inwilled by his will, 
because inspired by his Spirit, who lives and 
breathes within us. Therefore we may know that 
we are always heard, since we are in him who can 
boldly say to the Father: ‘‘I know that thou 
always hearest me.’’ It is Christ's mediatorship 
with the Father, and the Holy Ghost’s mediator- 
ship with us, that gives us this high privilege of 
praying in the name of Jesus, as it is written: 
‘‘For through him we both have access 2” one 
Spirit unto the Father.’’ 
When therefore, under the fuller development 
of doctrine as found in the epistles, we read of 
1 It was impossible up to the time of the glorification of Jesus 
to pray to the Father in his name. It is a fullness of joy 


peculiar to the dispensation of the Spirit to be able to do so.— 
Alford. 


THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE SPIRIT 153 


“ praying always with all prayer and supplication 
in the Spirit’’ (Eph. 6: 18), and of ‘‘ praying in 
the Holy Ghost’ (Jude 20), it is simply an admo- 
nition to use our privilege of asking in the name of 
Jesus. For to be in the Spirit is to be in Christ, 
united to his person, identified with his will, 
invested with his righteousness, so that we are as 
he is before the Father. 

In that fullest exposition of the doctrine of the 
Spirit, given in the eighth of Romans, we see 
clearly that the ministry of the Comforter consists 
in his effectuating in us that which Christ is 
accomplishing for us on the throne. Especially 
is this true of prayer. In the Epistle to the 
Hebrews we read: ‘‘ Wherefore also he is able to 
save to the uttermost them that draw near to God 
through him, seeing he ever liveth to make inter- 
cession for them’’ (Heb. 7: 25, R. V.). In the 
Epistle to the Romans we read: ‘‘ And in like 
manner the Spirit also helpeth our infirmity ; for 
we know not how to pray as we ought, but 7he 
Spirit himself maketh intercession for us with 
groanings which cannot be uttered; and he that 
searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of 
the Spirit, because he maketh intercession for the 
saints according to the will of God’ (Rom. 8: 26, 
27,R. V.). These passages, read together, clearly 
show the Spirit doing the same thing 27 us which 
Christ in heaven is doing for us. And, moreover, 
they reveal to us the method of the glorified Christ 
in helping those who know not what to pray for 
as they ought, teaching them, not by an outward 


154 THE MINISTRY OF THE SPIRIT 


form, but by an inward guidance. Indeed, the 
prayer inspired by the Holy Spirit is often so deep 
that it cannot be expressed in formal words, but 
reaches the ear of the Father only in unspeakable 
yearnings, in unuttered groanings. The keynote 
of all true intercession is the will of God. In the 
disciples’ prayer, as taught them by the Master, 
this note is distinctly sounded: « Thy will be done 
on earth as in heaven.’’ In the Saviour’s garden- 
prayer it is heard again, as with strong crying and 
tears the Son of God exclaims : ‘ Not my will but 
thine be done’’ ; and in the revelation of the doc- 
trine of prayer through an inspired apostle we 
read: ‘If we ask anything according to his will 
he heareth us.’’ It is the Spirit’s deepest work in 
the believer to attune his mind to this exalted key, 
as he ‘‘ maketh intercession for the saints accord- 
ing to the will: of God.’ There is a promise 
which all disciples love to quote for their assur- 
ance in prayer: ‘‘If two of you shall agree on 
earth as touching anything that they shall ask, it 
shall be done for them of my Father which is in 
heaven’’ (Matt. 18: 19). The word translated 
‘“‘agree'' is a very suggestive one. It is, 
oumpavamano from which our word ‘“symphony ’”’ 
comes. If two shall accord or symphonize in what 
they ask, they have the promise of being heard. 
But, as in tuning an organ all the notes must be 
keyed to the standard pitch, else harmony were 
impossible, so in prayer. It is not enough that 
two disciples agree with each other ; they must 
both accord with a Third—the righteous and holy 


THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE SPIRIT 155 


Lord—before in the scriptural sense they can 
agree in intercession. There may be agreement 
which is in most sinful conflict with the divine 
will: ‘‘How is it that ye have agreed together 
[ovvepwr7n, the same word] to tempt the Spirit of 
the Lord?’ asks Peter (Acts..5: 9). Here.is 
mutual accord, but guilty discord with the Holy 
Ghost. On the contrary it is the Spirit's ministry 
to attune our wills to the Divine; thus only can 
there be praying in the Holy Ghost. 

We cannot therefore emphasize too strongly 
the administration of the Spirit in directing the 
worship of God’s house. The use of liturgical 
forms is a relapse into legalism, a consent to be 
taught to pray as ‘‘John taught his disciples.’’ 
True, there may be extemporaneous forms as well 
as written forms, praying by rote as well as pray- 
ing by the book. Against both habits we simply 
interpose the higher teaching of the Spirit, as 
belonging especially to this dispensation, in which 
the Father seeketh worshipers who ‘‘ worship in 
Spirit and in truth.’’ To pray rightly is the 
highest of all attainments. And it is so because 
the secret lies between these two opposites; a 
spirit supremely active while supremely passive, a 
heart prevailing with God because prevailed over 
by God. ‘‘O Lord,’’ says a high saint, ‘‘my 
spirit was like a harp this morning, making 
melody before thee, since thou didst first tune the 
instrument by the Holy Spirit, and then didst 
choose the psalm of praise to be played thereon.”’ 
Most solemn and suggestive words these have 


156 THE MINISTRY OF THE SPIRIT 


always seemed: ‘‘ The Father seeketh such to 
worship him.’’ Amid all the repetition of forms 
and the chanting of liturgies, how earnestly the 
Most High searches after the spiritual worshiper, 
with a heart inwardly retired before God, with a 
spirit so sensitive to the hidden motions of the 
Holy Ghost that when the lips speak they shall 
utter the effectual inwrought prayer that availeth 
much ! 

If any shall interpose the objection that what 
we are saying is too high to be practical, it may be 
well to confirm our position by the witness of 
experience. We are not speaking of pulpit 
prayers especially, in what we have said. The 
universal priesthood of believers, which the 
Scriptures so plainly teach, constitutes the ground 
for common intercession, for “the praying one 
for another ’’ which is the distinctive feature of 
the Spirit's dispensation. The prayer meeting, 
therefore, in which the whole body of believers 
participate, probably comes nearer the pattern of 
primitive Christian worship than any other service 
which we hold. To apply our principle here, 
then, what method is found most satisfactory ? 
Shall the service be arranged beforehand, this one 
selected to pray, and that one to exhort ; and 
during the progress of the worship, shall such a 
one be called up to lead the devotions, and sucha 
one to follow? In a word, shall the service be 
mapped out in advance and mavipulated accord- 
ing to the dictates of propriety and fitness as it 
goes on? One, after many years of experience, 


THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE SPIRIT 157 


can bear emphatic testimony to the value of 
another way—that of magnifying the office of the 
Holy Spirit as the conductor of the service, and 
of so withholding the pressure of human hands in 
the assembly that the Spirit shall have the utmost 
freedom to move this one to pray and that one to 
witness, this one to sing and that one ‘‘to say 
amen at our giving of thanks,’’ according to his 
own sovereign will. Here we speak not theoret- 
ically but experimentally. The fervor and spiritu- 
ality and sweet naturalness of the latter method 
has been demonstrated beyond a peradventure, 
and that too, after an extended trial of both ways, 
the first in ignorance of a better way, with con- 
stant labor and worry and fret, and the last with 
inexpressible ease and comfort and _ spiritual 
refreshment. Honor the Holy Ghost as Master 
of assemblies ; study much the secret of surrender 
to him; cultivate a quick ear for hearing his 
inward voice and a ready, tongue for speaking his 
audible witness ; be submissive to keep silence 
when he forbids as well as to speak when he com- 
mands, and we shall learn how much better is 
God’s way of conducting the worsbip of his house 
than man’s way. ? 

1It were well for us to give more heed to the voice of Chris- 
tian history as related to such questions as these, The rise of 
“sporadic sects” like the ‘‘ Quietists,’’ the ‘‘ Mystics,’ the 
‘‘Friends,’”? and the ‘Brethren,’ with their emphasis on 
“the still voice’? and ‘‘the inward leading,” is very suggestive. 
If we may not go so far as some of these go in the insistence 
on speaking only as sensibly moved by the Spirit we may be 


admonished of the hard, artificial man-made worship which 
made their protest necessary. 


158 THE MINISTRY OF THE SPIRIT 


(3) The service of song in the house of the 
Lord is another element of worship whose relation 
to the Spirit needs to be strongly emphasized. 
Spiritual singing has a divinely appointed place in 
the church of Christ. Church music, in the ordi- ° 
nary sense of that phrase, has no such place, but 
is a human invention which custom has, with 
many, unhappily elevated into an ordinance. 
We often quote the exhortation of the apostle : 
‘« Be filled with the Spirit,’’ without marking the 
practical service with which this fullness stands 
immediately connected : « Speaking to yourselves 
in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing 
and making melody in your heart to the Lord” 
(Ephies>:*16)eAs immediately as prayer is con- 
nected with the Holy Ghost in this same epistle : 
‘‘ Praying at all seasons zx the Spirtt’’ - and our 
edification in the church: “ Builded together 2 
the Spirit’’ (Eph. 2 : 22, R. V.); and our 
spiritual energizing : ‘“‘Strengthened with power 
through his Spirtt’’ (Epht, 46271 Gos Votan 
our approach to God, ‘‘Access zz one Spirit unto 
the, Father an (opeer8 Re V.), so intimately is the 
worship of praise here connected with the Holy 
Ghost and made dependent on his power. There- 
fore it would seem too obvious to need arguing, 
that an unregenerate person is disqualified from 
ministering in the service of song in God’s house. 
Scripturally this seems incontestable ; and as to 
the teaching of experience, we should hardly 
know how to name any custom which has brought 
asorer blight upon the life of the church, or a 


THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE SPIRIT 159 


heavier repression upon its spiritual energy, than 
the habit, now so general, of introducing unsancti- 
fied, unconverted, and even notoriously worldly 
persons into the choirs of the churches. 

Now the teaching of the text just cited is deci- 
sive, not only against such performers in choirs, 
but against the choirs themselves, if by the latter 
term is meant certain ones employed to dispense 
music for the delectation of the congregation. 
For observe how distinctly the mutual and inter- 
congregational character of Christian singing is 
here pointed out: ‘‘Speaking 70 ome another in 
psalms and hymns and spiritual songs.’’ The one 
feature of the worship of the church, which distin- 
guishes it radically and totally from that of the 
temple, is that it is mutual. Under the law there 
were priests and Levites to minister and people to 
be ministered to ; under the gospel there is a uni- 
versal spiritual priesthood, in which all minister 
and all are ministered to. Every act of service 
belonging to the Christian church is so described. 
There must be prayer, and the exhortation is, 
‘Pray one for another’’ (James 5: 16). There 
must be confession, and the injunction is: ‘‘ Con- 
fess your sins one fo another’’ (James 5: 16, R. 
Y.). There must be exhortation, and the com- 
mand is: ‘‘Exhort one another’’ (Heb. 3: 13). 
There must be love, and we are enjoined to ‘love 
one another’’ (1 Peter 1: 22). There must be 
burden-bearing, and the exhortation is: ‘ Bear 
ye one another's burdens’’ (Gal. 6: 2). There 
must be comforting, and the command is: 


° 


160 THE MINISTRY OF THE SPIRIT 


‘Wherefore comfort ome another’’ (1 Thess. 4: 
18). So with the worship of song. Its reciprocal 
character is emphasized, not only in the passage 
just quoted, but also in the Epistle to the Colos- 
sians: ‘‘ Teaching and admonishing one another 
in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs’’ (Col. 3: 
16). This is according to the clearly defined 
method of the Spirit in this dispensation. He 
establishes our fellowship with the Head of the 
church, and through him with one another. All 
blessing in the body is mutual, and the worship 
which is ordained to maintain and increase that 
blessing is likewise mutual. 

As now the Spirit is the inspirer and director 
of the worship of God’s church, he must have 
those who have been renewed and are indwelt by 
himself as the instruments through whom he acts ; 
and by a teaching of Scripture too clear to be mis- 
understood all others are disqualified. How dis- 
tinctly is this shown even in the types and sym- 
bols of the old dispensation. The holy anointing 
enjoined in Exodus for Aaron and his sons, is 
confessedly a type of the unction of the Holy 
Ghost. And mark the rigid and sacred limitations 
in its use: ‘‘ And thou shalt anoint Aaron and his 
-sons, and consecrate them that they may minister 
unto me in the priest's office. And thou shalt 
speak unto the children of Israel, saying: This 
shall be a holy anointing oil unto me throughout 
your generation. Upon man’s flesh it shall not 
be poured ; neither shall ye make any other like 
it, after the composition of it ; it is holy, and shall 


THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE SPIRIT 161 


be holy unto you ; whosoever compoundeth any 
like it, or whoso putteth any of it upon a stranger, 
shall even be cut off from his people’’ (Exod. 
30 : 30-33). 

Now, of these minute directions and prescribed 
transactions we may say confidently that ‘‘ they 
happened unto them for ensamples and they are 
written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of 
the world [ages] are come’’ (1 Cor. 10: 11). The 
three rigid prohibitions here named touch just the 
errors which are most characteristic of the present 
generation. ‘(Upon man’s flesh it shall not be 
poured’ ; honoring the natural man, and exalting 
human nature into that place which belongs only 
to the regenerate. This is the error of those who 
believe in the universal sonship of the race, and 
call the carnal man divine. ‘‘ Whosoever putteth 
any of it upon a stranger.’’ ‘This is the sin of 
those who thrust into the ministry and service of 
the church persons who have never by the new 
birth through the Spirit been brought into the 
family of God, into the household of faith. 
‘“‘Whosoever compoundeth any like it.’’ This is 
the artificial imitation of the Spirit’s offices and 
ministration. Let the Christian reader pause and 
ponder well this last prohibition. In the story of 
the primitive church sample sins are given for our 
warning, as well as specimen graces for our emu- 
lation. One such sin, so subtle, so dangerous, 
and so constantly recurring in Christian history, 
having taken the name of its first author and 


being called ‘‘simony,’’ has been handed down 


162 THE MINISTRY OF THE SPIRIT 


from generation to generation. ‘ Because thou 
hast thought that the gift of God can be purchased 
with money’’ is the solemn indictment against 
one who had purposed to buy the power of the 
Holy Ghost. Many desire the gifts of the Spirit 
who little care for the Spirit himself. Divine 
music is greatly coveted. Why not, with our 
thousands of gold, buy this spiritual luxury ? 
Bring the singing men and singing women from 
the opera and from the concert hall; bid them 
compound a potion of sanctuary music, which 
shall entrance all ears and draw to the church 
those who could not be drawn thither by the plain 
attractions of the Cross. But what is the exhorta- 
tion of Scripture? ‘‘By him therefore let us 
offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, 
that is, the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to his 
name’’ (Heb. 13:15). This kind of sacrifice 
costs—earnest prayer, deep communion, and the 
fullness of the Spirit ; but no sum of gold, however 
large, is adequate for its purchase, nor can any 
musician's art, however ingenious, imitate it. Is 
there no approach to the sin of simony in those 
churches which spend thousands yearly in artistic 
music? And is not this attempted purchase of the 
Holy Ghost closely linked with the other sin of rob- 
bing God, considering how this lavish expenditure 
on artificial worship is almost always accompanied 
with meagre giving for the Carrying out of the 
Great Commission? Our conclusion is, that the 
service of song has been committed to the church, 
and to the church alone, under the guidance of 


THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE SPIRIT 163 


the Holy Spirit. Some of her number may be 
appointed to lead this service, if they themselves 
are under the leadership of the Spirit. But the 
church cannot commit this divine ministry to 
unsanctified hireling minstrels, without affront to 
the Spirit of God and serious pertl to her own 
communion with God. 

If again any object that we are setting up an 
exaggerated and impossible ideal, let the voice of 
experience be heard in evidence. Let pastors be 
called to testify of the added blessing and fervor 
which have come to their sanctuaries when this 
ideal has been approximately realized. Let history 
repeat its story of song driven in times of apostasy 
into some narrow stall of the church, and into the 
hands of a few trained monopolists of worship ; 
and then, in eras of revival, of the bursting of the 
barriers and the people of God seizing once more 
their defrauded heritage and breaking forth, a 
great multitude, into ‘‘hallelujahs of the heart.’’ 
The annals of the Lollards, and of the Lutherans, 
and of the Wesleyans, and of the Salvationists 
bear harmonious witness on this point, and are 
deeply instructive. 

3. The Holy Spirit in the Missions of the 
Church. Inthe Gospels which contain the story 
of Christ’s earthly life we have the record of the 
giving of the Great Commission: ‘‘ Go ye into all 
the world and preach the gospel to every crea- 
ture.’’ In the Acts, which contains the story of 
the life of the Spirit, we have the promise of the 
coming of the Executor of that Commission: ‘‘But 


164 THE MINISTRY OF THE SPIRIT 


ye shall receive power when the Holy Ghost is 
come upon you; and ye shall be my witnesses, 
both in Jerusalem and in Judea and Samaria, and 
unto the uttermost part of the earth’’ (Acts 1: 8, 
R. V.). Nowhere is the hand of the Spirit more 
distinctly seen*than in the origination and super- 
intendence of missions. The field is the world, 
the sower is the disciple, and the seed is the word. 
The world can only be made accessible through 
the Spirit—‘‘ When he is come he will convict the 
world of sin’’; the sower is energized only 
through the Spirit—‘‘ Ye shall receive the power 
of the Holy Ghost coming upon you”’ ; and the 
seed is only made productive through the quicken- 
ing of the Spirit—‘‘ He that soweth unto the Spirit 
shall of the Spirit reap eternal life’’ (Gal. 6: 8, 
R. V.). In the simple story of the primitive mis- 
sion, as recorded in the thirteenth of Acts, we see 
how every step in the enterprise was originated 
and directed by the presiding Spirit. We observe 
this : 

(1) In the selection of missionaries: ‘‘ The 
FHloly Ghost said, Separate me Barnabas and Saul 
fory the work whereunto I have called them’”’ 
iG crete’ 

(2) In their thrusting forth into the field: ‘‘So 
they, being sent forth by the oly Ghost, departed 
unto Seleucia’’ (13 : 4). 

(3) in empowering them to speak : ‘‘Then Saul, 
who also is called Paul, filled with the Holy Ghoszé, 
Sate oS Cra) a) bs 

(4) In sustaining them in persecution: ‘‘And 


THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE SPIRI1 165 


the disciples were filled with joy and with the oly 
Ghost’ (13: 52). 

(5) In setting the Divine seal upon their min- 
istry among the Gentiles: ‘‘And God, which 
knoweth the hearts, bare them witness, giving 
them the Holy Ghost, even as he did unto us’’ 
{Lave 3). 

(6) In counseling in difficult questions of mis- 
sionary policy : ‘‘ It seemed good éo the Holy Ghost 
and to us’’ (15 : 28). 

(7) In restraining the missionaries from enter- 
ing into fields not yet appointed by the Lord: 
They ‘‘were forbidden of the Holy Ghost to 
preach the gospel in Asia. . . They assayed 
to gointo Bithynia but che Spirit suffered them 
gore iG.:'6, 7). 

Very striking is this record of the ever-present, 
unfailing, and minute direction of the Holy Ghost 
in all the steps of this divine enterprise. ‘‘ But 
this was in apostolic days,’’ it will be said. Yes ; 
but the promise of the Spirit is that ‘‘ He shall 
abide with you for the age.’’ Unless the age has 
ended he is still here, and still in office, and still 
entrusted with the responsibility of carrying out 
that work which is dearest to the heart of our 
glorified Lord. Who can say that there is not 
need in these days of a return to primitive methods 
and of a resumption of the Church’s primitive 
endowments? The Holy Spirit is not straitened 
in himself, but only in us. If the Church had 
faith to lean less on human wisdom, to trust less 
in prudential methods, to administer less by 


166 THE MINISTRY OF THE SPIRIT 


mechanical rules, and to recognize once more the 
great fact that, having committed to her a super- 
natural work, she has appointed for her a super- 
natural power, who can doubt that the grinding 
and groaning of our cumbrous missionary machin- 
ery would be vastly lessened, and the demonstra- 
tion of the Spirit be far more apparent? 


VIII 


RELE 
INSPIRATION OF THE SPIRIT 


‘« Have you visited the Cathedral of Freyburg, and 
listened to that wonderful organist, who with such 
enchantment draws the tears from the traveler’s eyes 
while he touches, one after another, his wonderful 
keys, and makes you hear by turns the march of 
armies upon the beach, or the chanted prayer upon the 
lake during the tempest, or the voices of praise after 
itis calm? Well, thus the Eternal God, embracing at 
a glance the key-board of sixty centuries, touches by 
turns, with the fingers of his Spirit, the keys which 
he had chosen for the unity of his celestial hymn. 
He lays his left hand upon Enoch, the seventh from 
Adam, and his right hand on John, the humble and 
sublime prisoner of Patmos. From the one the strain 
is heard: ‘ Behold the Lord cometh with ten thousand 
of his saints’; from the other: ‘Behold he cometh 
with clouds.’ And between the notes of this hymn of 
three thousand years there is eternal harmony, and the 
angels stoop to listen, the elect of God are moved, 
and eternal life descends into men’s souls.’’—Gaussen’s 
Theopneusiia. 

168 


Vill 
THE INSPIRATION OF THE SPIRIT 


SWZ NSPIRATION signifies inbreathing. Both 
the scribe and the Scripture, both the 
man of God and the word of God were 
divinely inbreathed. In that memorable meeting 
of the risen Lord and his disciples within the 
closed doors, we read that ‘‘ He breathed on them 
and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost ; 
whosesoever sins ye forgive, they are forgiven 
unto them ; whosesoever sins ye retain, they are 
retained’’ (John 20: 22, R. V.). Well may the 
question of the scribes concerning Jesus now arise 


in our hearts concerning his disciples : ‘‘ Who can 
forgive sins but God only?’’ And the answer 
should be: ‘‘ True; God alone can forgive sins. 


And it is only because the Spirit of God, who is 
God, is in the apostles, endowing them with his 
divine prerogatives, that they are able to exercise 
this high authority.”’ 

We are persuaded, however, that this commis- 
sion was not given to all Christians, though all 
have the Spirit. In a note in Olshausen’s Com- 


mentary the matter seems to be correctly stated : 
169 


170 THE MINISTRY OF THE SPIRIT 


‘‘To the apostles was granted the power, absolute 
and unconditioned, of binding and loosing, just 
as to them was given the power of publishing 
truth unmixed with error. For do¢h they possessed 
miraculous spiritual endowments.’’ Only we should 
Say ‘‘sovereign rather than ‘‘ miraculous ’”’ 
endowments. ‘‘ The Spirit breatheth where he 
wzl/s, and thou hearest his voice,’’ said Jesus. 
While miraculous gifts were not confined to the 
apostles, Christ may have committed to these, and 
to these alone, the sovereign prerogative of for- 
giving sins; gifts of healing, on the other hand, 
the working of miracles, prophecy, the discerning 
of spirits, and tongues, being distributed through- 
out the church; ‘‘ but all these worketh one and 
the same Spirit, dividing to each one severally 
evenvas (he will **(.Cor.21 211; Rev seen 
word, the action of the Holy Ghost was supremely 
sovereign in the assignment of spiritual offices, 
and when Jesus breathed on his apostles the Holy 


99: 


1John 3:8. ‘The wind bloweth where it listeth.’’ Without 
pronouncing dogmatically, it must be said that the translation of 
Bengel and some others—*‘ The Spirit breatheth where he wills, 
and thou hearest his voice’’—has reasons in its favor which 
are well-nigh irresistible; ¢e. g., If TO Tvevua here is the wind, it 
has ‘one meaning in the first part of the sentence and another 
meaning in the second; and that meaning too, one which it 
bears in no other instance of the more than two hundred and 
seventy uses of the word in the New Testament. It is not the 
word used in Acts 2: 2,as might be expected if it signified 
wind, Then it seems unnatural to ascribe volition to the wind, 
OéAec. On the contrary, if the words apply to the Spirit, the 
saying is in entire harmony with other Scriptures, which affirm 
the Sovereignty of the Holy Ghost in regeneration (John 1 : 13) 
and in the control and direction of those who are the subjects 
of the new birth (2 Cor. 12 : 4-11). 


THE INSPIRATION OF THE SPIRIT 171i 


Ghost, and gave them authority to remit sins, he 
separated them unto a prerogative of which others, 
indwelt by the same Spirit, might have known 
nothing. It is very generally held that the order 
of apostles ceased with the death of those who had 
seen the Lord and companied with him until the 
day that he was received up. But the reason for 
this cessation has been too little considered. May 
we not believe that the apostles and their compan- 
ions were commissioned to speak for the Lord 
until the New Testament Scriptures, his authori- 
tative voice, should be completed? If so, in the 
apostolate we have a provisional inspiration ; in 
the gospel a stereotyped inspiration ; the first 
being endowed with authority ad interim to remit 
sins, and the second having this authority zz Zer- 
petuam. The New Testament, as the very mouth- 
piece of the Lord, pronounces forgiveness upon all 
in every generation who truly repent and believe 
on the Son of God ; and preachers in every age, 
with the Bible in their hand, are authorized to do 
the same declaratively. But when it is urged, as 
by Catholic writers, that this infallibility for teach- 
ing and absolution, which was committed to the 
apostles, has descended through a succession of 
ministers called the clergy, the answer seems to 
be, that this authority has not been perpetuated in 
any body of men apart from the Scriptures, but 
was transferred to the New Testament and lodged 
there for all time. Historically, at least, it seems 
to have been the fact, that as the apostles and 
prophets of the new dispensation disappeared, the 


172 THE MINISTRY OF THE SPIRIT 


Gospels and Epistles took their place, and that 
henceforth the divine authoritative voice of the 
Spirit could be distinctly recognized only in the 
written word. As coal has been called ‘fossil 
sunlight,’’ so the New Testament may be called 
fossil inspiration, the supernatural illumination 
which fell upon the apostles being herein stored 
up for the use of the church throughout the ages.! 

‘‘ All Scripture is given by inspiration of God 
[Geérvevoroc—God-breathed], and is profitable for 
doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction 
in righteousness ’’ (2 Tim. 3: 16). As the Lord 
breathed the Spirit into certain men, and thereby 
committed to them his own prerogative of forgiv- 
ing sin, so he breathed his Spirit into certain 
books and endowed them with his infallibility in 
teaching truth. God did not choose to inspire all 
good books, though he has chosen to inbreathe 
one book, thereby separating it and setting it 
apart from all other books.? The phrase, ‘‘the 
Bible is simply literature,’’ which some are using 


1 The proof that the inspiration of the apostles and scribes of 
the New Testament was not transmitted to successors is thus 
stated by Neander: ‘A phenomenon singular in its kind is the 
striking difference between the writings of the apostles and 
those of the apostolic fathers, so nearly their contemporaries, 
In other instances transitions are wont to be gradual, but in this 
instance we observe a sudden change. There is no gentle grada- 
tion here, but all at once an abrupt transition from one style 
of language to another—a phenomenon which should lead us to 
acknowledge the fact of a special agency of the Divine Spirit 
in the souls of the apostles and of a new creative element in the 
first period.”—Church History, II., 405. 


2 There are the strongest reasons for rejecting the rendering 
of this passage as given in the Revised Version: “ Lvery 
Scripture inspired of God is also profitable,’ etc. The 
reader will find the objections to this rendering powerfully and 
conclusively set forth in Tregelles on Daniel, Note, p. 267. 


THE INSPIRATION OF THE SPIRIT BAG 


to-day, as a suggestion against bibliolatry, is not 
true. Literature is the letter; Scripture is the 
letter inspired by the Spirit. What Jesus said in 
justification of his doctrine of the new birth is 
equally applicable to the doctrine of inspiration : 
‘© That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that 
which is born of the Spirit is spirit.’’ Educate, 
develop, and refine the natural man to the highest 
possible point, and yet he is not a spiritual man 
till, through the new birth, the Holy Ghost renews 
and indwells him. So of literature; however 
elevated its tone, however lofty its thought, it is 
not Scripture. Scripture is literature indwelt by 
the Spirit of God. The absence of the Holy Ghost 
from any writing constitutes the impassable gulf 
between it and Scripture. Our Lord, in speaking 
of his own doctrine, uses the same language, to 
show its separateness from common teaching which 
he employs above to mark the distinction of the 
new man. Hesays: ‘‘It is the Spirit that quick- 
eneth ; the flesh profiteth nothing ; the words that 
I have spoken unto you are spirit and are life’’ 
(John 6: 63, R. V.). Words they were, and in 
that respect, literature; but words divinely 
inbreathed and therefore Scripture. In fine, the 
one fact which makes the word of God a unique 
book, standing apart in solitary separateness from 
all other writings, is that which also parts off the 
man of God from common men —the indwelling 
of the Holy Ghost. Therefore we may say truly 
of the Bible, not merely that it was inspired, but 
it zs inspired ; that the Holy Ghost breathes within 


174 THE MINISTRY OF THE SPIRIT 


it, making it not only authoritative in its doctrine 
but life-giving in its substance, so that they who 
receive its promises by faith ‘‘ have been begotten 
again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, 
through the word of God which liveth and abideth ”’ 
(ilPeter "ia Reaves)! 

Thus far in this volume we have been dwelling 
upon the various works and offices of the Paraclete. 
Now we come to consider that the Holy Spirit not 
only acts but speaks. Let us listen to the repeated 
affirmations of this fact. Seven times our glorified 
Lord says, speaking in the Apocalypse : ‘‘ He that 
hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto 
the churches’’ (Rev. 2:7). The Paraclete on 
earth answers to the Paraclete above, so that tothe 
voice from Heaven saying : ‘‘Write, blessed are the 
dead which die in the Lord from henceforth,’’ the 
response is heard: ‘' Yea, saith the Spirit, that 
they may rest from their labors,’’ etc.(Rev. 14: a) 
This accords with the general tenor of Scripture 
as to its own Author. In referring to the Old 
Testament, Peter says: ‘‘ This Scripture must 
needs have been fulfilled, which the Holy Ghost 
by the mouth of David spake before concerning 
Judas, which was guide to them that took Jesus’’ 
(Acts 1: 16). And again: ‘ David himself sazd 
by the Floly Ghost’’ (Mark 12 : 36), our Lord thus” 
plainly recognizing the voice of the Spirit in the 
voice of the psalmist. So again : ‘‘ The Spirit of 
the Lord spake by me, and his word was in my 
tongue. The God of Israel said, the Rock of 
Israel spake to me’’ (2 Sam. 23: 2, 3), and 


THE INSPIRATION OF THE SPIRIT 175 


‘* Wherefore as the Holy Ghost saith, To-day if ye 
will hear his voice’’ (Heb. 3: 7). 

And what is it to speak? Is it not to express 
thought in language? The difference between 
thinking and saying is simply the difference of 
words. Therefore, if the Holy Ghost ‘‘ sazth,’’ we 
are to find in the words of Scripture the exact sub- 
stance of what he saith. Hence verbal inspiration 
seems absolutely essential for conveying to us the 
exact thought of God. And while many affect to 
ridicule the idea as mechanical and paltry, the con- 
duct and method of scholars of every shade of 
belief show how generally it is accepted. For, 
why the minute study of the words of Scripture 
carried on by all expositors, their search after the 
precise shade of verbal significance, their atten- 
tion to the minutest details of language, and to all 
the delicate coloring of mood and tense and 
accent? The high scholars who speak lightly of 
the theory of literal inspiration of the Scriptures 
by their method of study and exegesis are they 
who put the strongest affirmation on the doctrine 
which they deny. Then we cannot forget what 
we imply when we say that language is the 
expression of thought. Words determine the 
size and shape of ideas. As exactly as the coin 
answers to the die in which it is struck, does the 
thought answer to the word by which it is uttered. 
Vary the language by the slightest modification, 
and you by so much vary the thought. 

As ultra-spiritualism interprets Paul’s words 
‘(a spiritual body,’’ to mean a ghost, when the 


176 THE MINISTRY OF THE SPIRIT 


accent is as strongly on the caya as on the avev- 
varixdv, his real thought evidently being that of a 
body spiritualized ; so some, remembering that 
‘‘the letter killeth,’’ would etherealize Scripture 
by telling us that the divine idea is the chief thing, 
and the language quite secondary. But wisely 
and well has Martin Luther reminded us that 
‘Christ did not say of his Spirit, but of his words, 
they are spirit and life.’’ 

To deny that it is the Holy Ghost who speaks 
in Scripture, is an intelligible position ; but admit- 
ting that he speaks, we can only understand his 
thoughts by listening to his words. True, he may 
beget within us emotions too deep for expression, 
as when ‘‘ The Spirit himself maketh intercession 
for us with groanings which cannot be uttered ”’ 
(Rom. 8: 26). But the idea which is really intel- 
ligible is the idea that is embodied in speech. For 
finite minds, at least, words are the measure of 
comprehensible thoughts. Evidently Jesus claims 
for his teaching not only inspiration, but verbal 
inspiration, when he says that his words are 
‘spirit and life.’’ And to this agrees the saying 
of Paul, in speaking of the inspiration of the Holy 
Ghost : ‘‘ But God hath revealed them unto us by 
his Spirit : for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, 
the deep things of God. For what man knoweth 
the things of man, save the spirit of man which is 
in him? even so the things of God knoweth no 
man, but the Spirit of God Now we have 
received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit 
which is of God, that we might know the things 


THE INSPIRATION OF THE SPIRIT 177 


which are freely given to us of God, which things 
also we speak, not cn the words which man's wis- 
dom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth, 
comparing spiritual things with spiritual ’’ (1 Cor. 
2 : 10-13). 

And what if one objects that this theory makes 
inspiration purely mechanical, and turns the 
writers of Scripture into stenographers, whose 
office is simply to transcribe the words of the 
Spirit as they are dictated? It must be confessed 
that there is much in Scripture to support this 
view of the case. Should we see a student who, 
having taken down the lecture of a profound phil- 
osopher, was. now studying diligently to compre- 
hend the sense of the discourse which he had 
written, we should understand simply that he was 
a pupil and not a master ; that he had nothing to 
do with originating either the thoughts or the 
words of the lecture, but was rather a disciple 
whose province it was to understand what he had 
transcribed, and so be able to communicate it to 
others. And who can deny that this is the exact 
picture of what we have in the following passage 
from Scripture : ‘‘Of which salvation the prophets 
have inquired and searched diligently, who pro- 
phesied of the grace that should come unto you, 
searching what, or what manner of time the 
Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify, 
when tt testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ 
and the glory that should follow ; unto whom it 
was revealed,’’ etc. (1 Peter1: 10, 11). Here 


were inspired writers, studying the meaning of 
12 


178 THE MINISTRY OF THE SPIRIT 


what they themselves had written. If they were 
prophets on the manward side, they were evi- 
dently pupils on the Godward side. With all 
possible allowance for the human peculiarities of 
the writers, they must have been reporters of what 
they heard, rather than the formulators of that 
which they had been made to understand. How 
nearly this also describes the attitude of Christ, — 
a hearer that he might be a teacher: ‘‘All things 
that I have heard of my Father I have made 
known unto you’’ (John 15 : 15); a reporter 


that he might be a revealer: ‘‘I have given 
unto them ¢he words which thou gavest me’’ 
(John 17 : 8). 


In these days scholars are very jealous for the 
human element in inspiration ; but the sovereign 
element is what most impresses the diligent stu- 
dent of this subject. ‘‘ The Spirit breatheth where 
he wiills.’’ Concerning regeneration by the Holy 
Ghost, we are carefully told that it is ‘‘ not of the 
will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of 
God’’ ; and concerning inspiration by the Spirit, 
the teaching is equally explicit: ‘‘ For no proph- 
ecy ever came dy the will of man, but men spake 
from God, being moved vy the Holy Ghost’’ (2 
Peter diai2 eeReeVe): 

The style of Scripture is, no doubt, according 
to the traits and idiosyncrasies of the several 
writers, as the light within the cathedral takes on 
its various hues from passing through the stained 
windows ; but to say that the thoughts of the Bible 
are from the Spirit, and the language from men, 


THE INSPIRATION OF THE SPIRIT 179 


creates a dualism in revelation not easy to justify ; 
so that we must quote with entire approval the 
words of an eminent writer upon this subject: 
‘«The opinion that the subject-matter alone of the 
Bible proceeded from the Holy Spirit, while its 
language was left to the unaided choice of 
the various writers, amounts to that fantastic 
notion which is the grand fallacy of many 
theories of inspiration; namely, that two spiri- 
tual agencies were in operation, one of which 
produced the phraseology in the outward form, 
while the other created: within the soul the 
conceptions and thoughts of which such phrase- 
ology was the expression. The Holy Spirit, 
on the contrary, as the productive przczpie, 
embraces the entire activity of those whom 
he inspires, rendering their language the word 
of God.’’ 

If it be urged that the quotations which the 
New Testament makes from the Old are rarely 
ipsissima verba, the language being in many 
instances greatly changed, it should be noted in 
reply how significant even these changes often 
are. If the Holy Spirit directed in the writing of 
both books, he would have a sovereign right to 
alter the phraseology, if need be, from the one to 
the other. In the opinion of many scholars the 
change of ‘‘the Redeemer shall come /o Zion, and 
unto them that turn from transgression in Jacob,”’ 
in Isa. 59: 20, to ‘‘ There shall come ou? of Zion 
the Deliverer,’’ in Rom. 11 : 26, is an inspired and 


1 Lee on the “‘ Inspiration of the Holy Scripture,”’ pp. 32. 33 


180 THE MINISTRY OF THE SPIRIT 


intentional change.! So of the citation from Amos 
9g: 11, ‘In that day will I raise up the tabernacle 
that is fallen,’’ as given in Acts 15: 16, ‘‘ After 
these things I will return, and I will build again 
the tabernacle of David which is fallen’’ ; the 
modification of the language seems designed, in 
order to make clear its significance in its present 
setting. Many other examples might be given of 
a reshaping of his own words by the divine Author 
of Scripture. On the other hand, the constant 
recurrence of the same words and phrases in books 
of the Bible most widely separated in the time and 
circumstances of their composition, strongly sug- 
gests identity of authorship amid the variety of 
penmanship. The individuality of the writers 
was no doubt preserved, only that their individu- 
ality was subordinated to the sovereign individu- 
ality of the Holy Spirit. It is with the written 
word as with the incarnate Word. Because Christ 
is divine, he is more truly human than any whom 
the world has ever seen ; and because the Bible 
is supernatural, it is natural as no other book 
which was ever written ; its divinity lifts it above 
those faults of style which are the fruits of self- 
consciousness and ambition. Whether we read 
the Old Testament story of Abraham’s servant 
seeking a bride for Isaac, or the New Testament 
narrative of the walk of the risen Christ with his 
disciples to Emmaus, the inimitable simplicity of 
the diction would make us think that we were 
listening to the dialect of the angels who never 


1 See Lange’s ‘‘ Commentary ” in loco. 


THE INSPIRATION OF THE SPIRIT 181 


sinned in thought, and therefore cannot sin in 
style, did we not know rather that it is the phrase- 
ology of the Holy Spirit. 

An eminent German theologian has written a 
sentence so profoundly significant that we here 
reproduce it in italics: ‘‘ We can in fact speak 
with good reason of a language of the Holy 
Ghost. For it lies in the Bible plainly before our 
eyes, how the Divine Spirit, who ts the agent 
of revelation, has fashioned for himself a quite 
peculiar religious dialect out of the speech of that 
people which forms its theatre.’’* So true do we 
hold this saying to be, that it seems to us quite 
impossible that the exact meaning of many of the 
terms of the New Testament Greek should be 
found in a Lexicon of classic Greek. Though the 
verbal form is the same in both, the inbreathed 
spirit may have imparted such new significance to 
old words, that to employ a secular dictionary for’ 
translating the sacred oracles, were almost like 
calling an unregenerate man to interpret the mys- 
teries of the regenerate life. Do we not know how 
modern progress and discovery have even put new 
meanings into many English words, so that one 
must be in ‘‘the spirit of the age’’ in order to 
comprehend them?* Thus likewise, even in the 

11 am satisfied only with the style of Scripture. My own 
style and the style of all other men cannot satisfy me, If I read 
only three cr four verses I am sure of their divinity on account 
of their inimitableness. J/¢ ts the style of the heavenly court.— 
Oetinger. 

2 Rothe, “ Dogmatics,’’ p. 238 


3 For example, Shakespeare, and Milton, and Dryden, employ 
the words ‘‘car,” and ‘‘engine,’’ and ‘train’ ip their writ- 


, 


182 THE MINISTRY OF THE SPIRIT 


work of verbal criticism, it is essential that one 
possess the spirit of Christ in order to translate 
the words of Christ. 

As to the question of the ‘‘inerrancy of Scrip- 
ture,’’ as the modern phrase is, we may well pass 
by many minor arguments, and emphasize the one 
great reason for holding this view, viz.: If it is — 
God the Holy Ghost who speaks in Scripture, 
then the Bible is the word of God, and like God, 
infallible. A recent brilliant writer has challenged 
us to show where the Bible anywhere calls itself 
‘*The word of God.’’! The most elementary 
student of the subject can, with the aid of a con- 
cordance, easily point out the passages which so 
describe it. But we dwell on the fact that is not 
only called 6 Adyor rot Geov, ‘‘ the word of God,” 
but ra Adyia tov Oeov, ‘‘ the oracles of God.’’ This 
collective name of the Scriptures is most signifi- 
-cant. We need not inquire of the heathen as to 
the meaning which they put upon the words as 
the authoritative utterances of their gods ; let the 
usage of Scripture make its own impression : 
‘‘ What advantage then hath the Jew? or what is 
the profit of circumcision? Much every way; 
first of all, that they were intrusted with she oracles 
Of-iGod *I(RomagieaeResV.).2 
ings; but living before the age of steam and railways they 
knew nothing of the meaning which these terms convey to us. 
And it is possible that Homer and Plato knew as little of the 
meaning of such words as @/@V and TapakyyTO¢, as found in 
the revelation of Jesus Christ, by whom ‘‘the ages were framed ”’ 
and the Comforter sent down. 


1 Dr. R. F. Horton, in “ Verbum Dei.’’ 
2 The apostle in calling the Old Testament Scriptures the ‘‘ ora- 


THE INSPIRATION OF THE SPIRIT 183 


This comprehensive expression is very helpful 
to our faith. When critics are assailing the books 
of the Old Testament in detail, the Holy Spirit 
authenticates them for us in their entirety. As 
Abigail prayed for a soul ‘‘bound in the bundle 
of life’’ with the Lord, so here an apostle gives us 
the books of the Law and the Prophets and the 
Psalms bound together in one bundle of inspired 
authority. Stephen, in like manner, speaks of his 
nation as ‘‘those who received the Zvely oracles 
(of God) to give unto us’’ (Acts 7: 38); and 
_ Peter says, ‘‘If any man speak let him speak as 
the oracles of God’’ (1 Peter 4:11). And not 
only this ; the same apostles who submitted to the 
authority of the Old Testament as the oracles of 
God, themselves claimed to write as the oracles 
of God in the New Testament. ‘‘If any man,”’ 
says Paul, ‘‘think himself to be a prophet or 
spiritual, let him acknowledge that the things that 
I write unto you are the commandments of the 
Lora) (uv -Cor.t4 2°937).)' “ Wevare’ of’ God,’ 
writes John. ‘‘ He that knoweth God heareth us ; 
he that is not of God heareth not us’’ (1 John 
4:16). These claims are too great to be put 
forth concerning fallible writings. Admitting 
their premises, the Jews were right in charging 
Jesus with blasphemy, in that being a man he 
made himself God. If Christ is not God, he is 
cles of God,’’ clearly recognizes them as divinely inspired books, 
The Jewish church was the trustee and guardian of these oracles 
till the coming of Christ. Now the Scriptures of the Old and New 


Testament are committed to the guardianship of the Christian 
Church.—Dr. Philip Schaff. 


184 THE MINISTRY OF THE SPIRIT 


not even a good man.’ And if the Scriptures are 
not inerrant, they are worse than errant; since, 
being literature, they make themselves the word of 
God. 

And what if it be said that there are irrecon- 
cilable contradictions in this book which calls 
itself the oracles of God? Two things may be 
said : First, it should be expected that under ‘ the 
scientific method'’ such contradictions should 
appear and constantly multiply. The Bible is a 
sensitive plant, which shuts itself up at the touch 
of mere critical investigation. In the same para- 
graph in which it claims that its very words are 
the words of the Holy Spirit, it repudiates the 
scientific method as futile for the understanding 


of those words: ‘‘Eye hath not seen, nor ear 
heard,’’—and insists on the spiritual method as 
alone adequate,—‘‘ but God hath revealed them 


unto us by his Spirit’’ (1 Cor. 2: 9, 10). Not 
only does the Bible not yield roses to the critic, it 
yields the thorns and briars of hopeless contradic- 
tion. ‘‘ Jntellige ut credas verbum meum,’’ said 
Augustine to the rationalists of his day, ‘‘sed 
crede ut intelligas verbum Dei.’ ‘*Understand 
my word, that you may believe it; believe God’s 
word, that you may understand it.’’ Faith holds 
not only the keys of all the creeds, but of all the 
contradictions. He who starts out and proceeds 
under the conviction that the Bible is the infallible 
word of God, will find discrepancies constantly 
turning into unisons under his study. And this 
remark leads to the second observation : that the 


THE INSPIRATION OF THE SPIRIT 185 


contradictions of man may really be the harmon- 
ies of God. An uncultivated listener, hearing an 
oratorio of one of the great masters, would detect 
discords again and again in the strains ; and as a 
matter of fact, what are called ‘‘ accidentals’’ in 
music are discords, but discords inserted to 
heighten the harmony. Thus, as one after 
another of the alleged discrepancies of Scripture 
having been noted and made to jar upon the ear 
have then been reconciled, with what an emphatic 
and heightened harmony have the words of the 
psalmist, speaking by the Holy Ghost, fallen on 
our ear: ‘‘ The law of the Lord is perfect, con- 
verting the soul ; the testimony of the Lord is sure, 
making wise the simple’’! There seems to the 
critic to be historic error in the statement of 
Stephen that Jacob was buried at Sychem (Acts 
7 : 16) instead of in the field of Machpelah before 
Mamre, as recorded in Gen. 50: 13, just as it 
was once thought that Luke had made a mistake, 
not to be explained away, in his reference to 
Cyrenius in chapter 2:1, 2. But as the latter 
contradiction has disappeared, only confirming the 
veracity of Scripture by the investigation which it 
has called forth, so may the former. And so also 
with such alleged discrepancies as that between 
the record in one place that King Solomon had 
four thousand stalls for horses, and in another 
forty thousand ; or that of the statement in one 
passage that King Josias began to reign at eight 
years of age, and in another, at eighteen. What 
if we freely admit that we cannot reconcile these 


186 THE MINISTRY OF THE SPIRIT 


statements? That does not prove that they are 
not reconcilable. The history of solved contra- 
dictions has certainly shown this, that as ‘the 
foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the 
weakness of God stronger than men,”’ so the dis- 
cords of God are more harmonious than men. 

We may say, in closing this chapter, that 
almost the highest proof of the infallibility of 
Scripture is the practical one, that we have proved 
it so; that as the coin of the State has always 
been found able to buy the amount represented on 
its face, so the prophecies and the promises of 
Holy Scripture have yielded their face value to 
those who have taken pains to prove them. If 
they have not always done so, it is probable that 
they have not yet matured. Certainly there are 
multitudes of Christians who have so far proved 
the veracity of Scripture that they are ready to 
trust it without reserve in all that it pledges for 
the world yet unseen and the life yet unrealized. 
‘Believe that thou mayest know,’” then, is the 
admonition which Scripture and history combine 
to enforce. In the farewell of that rare saint, 
Adolph Monod, these golden words occur: 
‘‘When I shall enter the invisible world, I do 
not expect to find things different from what the 
word of God represented them to me here. The 
voice I shall then hear will be the same I now 
hear upon the earth, and I shall say, ‘This is 
indeed what God said tome; and how thankful 
Lam that I did not wait till I had seen in order 
go believe.’ ”’ 


IX 


6 THE 
CONVICTION OF THE SPIRIT 


‘“‘“The Comforter in every part of his threefold 
work glorifies Christ. In convincing of sin he con- 
vinces us of the sin of not believing on Christ. In 
convincing us of righteousness, he convinces us of 
the righteousness of Christ, of that righteousness which 
was made manifest in Christ going to the Father, and 
which he received to bestow on all such as should 
believe in him. And lastly, in convincing of judg- 
ment, he convinces us that the Prince of the World 
was judged in the life and by the death of Christ. 
Thus throughout, Christ is glorified; and that which 
the Comforter shows to us relates in all its parts to 
the life and work of the incarnate Son of God,’’— 
Julius Charles Hare. 


188 


IX 
THE CONVICTION OF THE SPIRIT 


ND when he is come he will convict the 
world in respect of sin, and of righteous- 
ness, and of judgment’’ (John 16: 8, 

R. V.). It is too large a conclusion which many 

seem to draw from these words, that since the day 

of Pentecost the Spirit has been universally dif- 
fused in the world, touching hearts everywhere, 
among Christians and heathen, among the evan- 
gelized and the unevangelized alike, and awaken- 
ing in them a sense of sin. Does not our Lord 
say in this same discourse concerning the Com- 
forter: ‘‘ Whom the world cannot receive, because 
it seeth him not neither knoweth him’’? (John 

14: 17). With these words should be associated 

the limitation which Jesus makes in the gift of the 

Paraclete : ‘‘ If I depart I will send him w/o you.’s 

Christ’s disciples were to be the recipients and 

distributors of the Holy Ghost, and his church the 

mediator between the Spirit and the world. ‘‘And 
when he is come (to you) he will reprove the 
world.’’ And to complete the exposition, we may 


connect this promise with the Great Commission, 
180 


190 THE MINISTRY OF THE SPIRIT 


‘*Go ye into al/ the world and preach the gospel 
to every creature,’ and conclude that when the 
Lord sends his messengers into the world, the 
Spirit of truth goes with them, witnessing to the 
message which they bear, convincing of the sin 
which they reprove, and revealing the righteous- 
ness which they proclaim. We are not clear to 
affirm that the conviction of the Spirit here prom- 
ised goes beyond the church’s evangelizing, though 
there is every reason to believe that it invariably 
accompanies the faithful preaching of the word. 

It will help us then to a clear conception of 
the subject, if we consider the Spirit of truth as 
sent unto the church, testifying of Christ, and 
bringing conviction Zo the world. 

As there is a threefold work of Christ, as 
prophet, priest, and king, so there is a threefold 
conviction of the Spirit answering thereto: ‘‘And 
he, when he is come, will convict the world in 
respect of sin and of righteousness and of judg- 
ment ; of sin, because they believe not on me; of 
righteousness, because I go to the Father and ye 
behold me no more; of judgment, because the 
prince of this world hath been judged’’ (John 
16 : 8-12, R. V.). It is concerning the testimony 
ef Christ as he spake to men in the days of his 
flesh ; and concerning the work of Christ now 
carried on in his intercession at God's right hand ; 
and concerning the sentence of Christ when he 
shall come again to be our judge, that this witness 
of the Spirit has to do. 

‘‘He shall convince the world of sin.’’ Why is 


THE CONVICTION OF THE SPIRIT Ig! 


he needed for this conviction since conscience is 
present in every human breast, and is doing his 
work so faithfully ? We reply: Conscience is the 
witness to the law; the Spirit is the witness to 
grace. Conscience brings legal conviction ; 
the Spirit brings evangelical conviction; the 
one begets a conviction unto despair, the other a 
conviction unto hope. 

“Of sin, because they believe not on me,” 
describes the ground of the Holy Spirit’s convic- 
tion. The entrance of Christ into the world ren- 
dered possible a sin hitherto unknown: ‘If I had 
not come and spoken unto them, they had not had 
sin ; but now they have no cloak for their sin’’ 
(John 15 : 22). Evil seems to have required the 
presence of incarnate goodness, in order to its 
fullest manifestation. Hence the deep significance 
of the prophecy spoken over the cradle of Jesus : 
‘ Behold this child is set for the falling and rising 
again of many in Israel; and for a sign which 
shall be spoken against, that the thoughts of many 
hearts may be revealed’’ (Luke 2 : 34, 35). All 
the most hideous sins of human nature came out 
during the betrayal and trial and passion of our 
Lord. Inthat ‘‘hour and power of darkness’’ 
these sins seem indeed to have been but imper- 
fectly recognized. But when the day of Pentecost 
had come, with its awful revealing light of the 
Spirit of truth, then there was great contrition in 
Jerusalem—a contrition the sting of which we find 
in the charge of Peter: ‘Jesus of Nazareth, 
whom ye have taken and by wicked hands have 


192 THE MINISTRY OF THE SPIRIT 


crucified and slain.’’ Was not that deep convic- 
tion, following the gift of the Spirit, in which three 
thousand were brought to repentance in a single 
day, a conviction of sin because they had not 
believed on Christ ? 

For our reproof the Holy Ghost presents 
another side of the same fact, calling us to repent- 
ance, not for having taken part in crucifying 
Christ, but for having refused to take part in Christ 
crucified ; not for having been guilty of delivering 
him up to death, but for having refused to believe 
in him who was ‘‘delivered for our offenses and 
raised again for our justification.’’ Wherever, by 
the preaching of the gospel, the fact of Christ 
having died for the sins of the world is made 
known, this guilt becomes possible. The sin of 
disbelieving on Christ is, therefore, the great sin 
now, because it summarizes all other sins. He 
bore for us the penalties of the law ; and thus our 
obligation, which was originally to the law, is 
transferred to him. To refuse faith in him, there- 
fore, is to repudiate the claims of the law which 
he fulfilled and to repudiate the debt of infinite 
love which, by his sacrifice, we have incurred. 
Nevertheless, the Spirit of truth brings home this 
sin against the Lord, not to condemn the world, 
but that the world through him might be saved. 
In a word, as has been well said, ‘‘it is not the 
sin-question but the Son-question’’ which we 
really raise now in preaching the gospel. ‘‘ Christ 
having perfectly satisfied God about sin, the ques- 
tion now between God and your heart is : Are you 


THE CONVICTION OF THE SPIRIT 193 


perfectly satisfied with Christ as the alone portion 
of your soul? Christ has settled every other to 
the glory of God.’’ In dealing with the guilty 
Jews, it was the historical fact which the Holy 
Ghost urged for their conviction : ‘* Ye denied the 
Holy One and the Just, and killed the Prince of 
Life’’ (Acts 3: 14, 15). In dealing with us 
Gentiles, it is rather the theological or evangelical 
fact: ‘‘ Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the 
just for the unjust, that he might bring us to 
God’ (1 Peter 3 : 18), and you are condemned 
that you have not believed on him and confessed 
him as Saviour and Lord. It is the same sin in 
the last instance, but viewed upon its reverse side, 
if we may say it. In the one case it is the guilt 
of despising and rejecting the Son of God; in the 
other, it is the guilt of not believing in him who 
was despised and rejected of men. Yet if sub- 
missively yielded to, the Spirit will lead us from 
this first stage of revelation to the second, since 
what Andrew Fuller said of the doctrines of the- 
ology is equally true of the convictions of the 
Spirit, that ‘‘they are united together like chain- 
shot, so that whichever one enters the heart the 
other must certainly follow.”’ 

‘““ Of righteousness, because I go to the Father 
and ye see me no more.’ Not until he had been 
seated in the heavenly places had Christ perfected 
righteousness for us. As he was ‘‘ delivered for 
our offenses and raised again for our justification,” 
so must he be enthroned for our assurance. It is 


necessary to see Jesus standing at the right hand 
13 


94 THE MINISTRY OF THE SPIRIT 


of God, in order to know ourselves ‘‘ accepted in 
the Beloved.’’ How beautiful the culmination of 
Isaiah's passion-prophecy wherein, accompanying 
the promise that ‘‘ he shall bear the sin of many,”’ 
is the prediction that ‘‘ by his knowledge shal] my 
righteous servant justify many’’! But he must be 
shown to be righteous, in order that he may jus- 
tify ; and this is what his exaltation does. ‘It 
was the proof that him whom the world con- 
demned, God justified—that the stone which the 
builders rejected, God made the Headstone of the 
corner—that him whom the world denied and 
lifted up on a cross of shame in the midst of two 
thieves, God accepted and lifted up in the midst 
of the throne.”’ ! 

The words ‘‘and because ye see me no more,”’ 
which have perplexed the commentators, seem to 
us to give the real clue to the meaning of the 
whole passage. So long as the High Priest was 
within the veil, and unseen, the congregation of 
Israel could not be sure of their acceptance. 
Hence the eager anxiety with which they waited 
his coming out, with the assurance that God had 
received the propitiation offered on their behalf. 
Christ, our great High Priest, has entered into the 

1 For as the ministry of Enoch was sealed by his reception 
into heaven, and as the ministry of Elijah was also abundantly 
proved by his translation, so also the righteousness and inno- 
cence of Christ. But it was necessary that the ascension of Christ 
should be more fully attested, because upon his righteousness, 
so fully proved by his ascension, we must depend for all our 
righteousness, For if God had not approved him after his 


resurrection, and he had not taken his seat at his right hand, 
we could by no means be accepted of God.— Cartwright. 


THE CONVICTION OF THE SPIRIT 195 


Holy of Holies by his own blood. Until he comes 
forth again at his second advent, how can we be 
assured that his sacrifice for us is accepted? We 
could not be, unless he had sent out one from his 
presence to make known this fact to us. And this 
is precisely what he has done in the gift of the 
Holy Ghost. ‘‘ Who being the brightness of his 
glory, and the express image of his person, and 
upholding all things by the word of his power, 
when he had by himself purged our sins, he 
sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on 
high’’ (Heb. 1: 3). There he will remain through- 
out the whole duration of the great day of atone- 
ment, which extends from ascension to advent. 
But in order that his church may have immediate 
assurance of acceptance with the Father, through 
his righteous servant, he sends forth the Paraclete 
to certify the fact ; and the presence of the Spirit 
in the midst of the church is proof positive of the 
presence of Jesus in the midst of the throne ; as is 
said by Peter on the day of Pentecost: ‘‘There- 
fore being by the right hand of God exalted, and 
having received of the Father the promise of the 
Holy Ghost, he hath shed forth this which ye now 
see and hear’’ (Acts 2: 33). — 

Now the Lord’s words seem plain to us. 
Because he ascends to the Father, to be seen 
no more until his second coming, the Spirit 
meantime comes down to attest his presence and 
approval with the Father as the perfectly right- 
eous One. How clearly this comes out in Peter’s 
defense before the Council: ‘‘The God of our 


196 THE MINISTRY OF THE SPIRIT 


fathers raised up Jesus, whom ye slew and hanged 
on atree. Him hath God exalted with his right 
hand to be a Prince anda Saviour, for to give 
repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins; and 
we are witnesses of these things, azd so also ts the 
floly Ghost, whom God hath given to them that 
obey him’”’ (Acts 5 : 30-32). Why this two-fold 
witness? The reason is obvious. The disciples 
could bear testimony to the crucifixion and resur- 
rection of Christ, but not to his enthronement ; 
that event was beyond the ken of human vision ; 
and so the Holy Ghost, who had been cognizant 
of that fact in heaven, must be sent down as a 
joint-witness with the apostles, that thus the whole 
circle of redemption-truth might be attested. 
Therein was the promise of Jesus in his last 
discourse literally fulfilled: ‘‘ But when the Com- 
forter is come, whom I will send unto you from 
the Father, even the Spirit of truth which pro: 
ceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me; 
and ye also shall bear witness, because ye have 
been with me from the beginning’’ (John 15: 
2GPe 2)! 

, As we have said, it is not only the enthrone- 
ment of Christ in righteous approval with the Father 
that must be certified, but the acceptance of his 
sacrificial work as a full and satisfying ground of 
our reconciliation with the Father. And the Spirit 
proceeding from God is alone competent to bear 
to us this assurance. Therefore in the Epistle to 
the Hebrews, after the reiterated statement of our 
Lord’s exaltation at the right hand of God, it is 


THE CONVICTION OF THE SPIRIT 197 


added: ‘‘For by one offering he hath perfected 
forever them that are sanctified, whereof the Holy 
Ghost ts also a witness to us’’ (Heb. 10 : 14, 15). 
In a word, he whom we have known on the cross 
as ‘‘the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins 
of the world,’’ must now be known to us on the 
throne as ‘‘the Lord our righteousness.’ But 
though the angels and the glorified in heaven see 
Jesus, once crucified, now ‘‘ made both Lord and 
Christ,’” we see him not. Therefore it is written 
that ‘‘no man can say Jesus is Lord, but zn the 
floly Spirit’’ (1 Cor. 12: 3; R. V.).. So also we 
are told that ‘‘if any mansin wehave a Paraclete 
with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous’’ (1 
John 2: 1); but we can only know Christ as such 
through that ‘‘ other Paraclete’’ sent forth from 
the Father. It was promised that ‘‘ when he, the 
Spirit of truth, is come, he shall not speak from 
himself; but what things soever he shall hear, 
these shall he speak’’ (John 16 : 13, R. V.). 
Hearing the ascriptions of worthiness lifted up to 
Christ in heaven, and beholding him who was 
made a little lower than the angels for the suffer- 
ing of death, now ‘‘crowned with glory and 
honor,’’ he communicates what he sees and hears 
to the church on earth. Thus, as he in his earthly 
life, through his own outshining and self-evidenc- 
ing perfection, ‘‘ was justified in the spirit’’ ; so 
we, recognizing him standing for us in glory, and 
now ‘‘of God made unto us righteousness,’’ are 
also ‘‘ justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and 
by the Spirit of our God’’ (1 Cor. 6: 11). 


198 . THE MINISTRY OF THE SPIRIT 


Thus, though unseen by the church during all 
the time of his high-priestly ministry, our Lord 
has sent to his church one whose office it is to bear 
witness to all he is and all he is doing while in 
heaven, that so we may have ‘boldness and 
access with confidence by the faith of him,’’ and 
that so we may come boldly to the throne of grace, 
‘‘the Holy Ghost this signifying ’’—what he could 
not under the old covenant—‘‘ that the way into 
the holiest of all’’ (Heb. 9 : 8) has been made 
manifest. 

And yet—strange paradox—in this identical 
discourse in which Jesus speaks to his disciples of 
seeing him no more, he says: ‘‘ Yet a little while and 
the world seeth me no more, but ye see me ; because 
I live ye shall live also’’ (John 14: 19); words 
which by common consent refer to the same time 
of Christ’s continuance within the veil. But it is 
now by the inward vision, which the world has not, 
that they are to behold him. And they are to 
behold him for the world, since Christ said of him : 
‘Whom the world cannot recetve, because it seeth 
him not, neither knoweth him.’’ And yet it is ‘‘to 
convince the world’’ ‘‘ of sin and of righteousness 
and of judgment’’ that the Spirit was to be sent. 
How shall we make it plain? When the sun retires 
beyond the horizon at night, the world, our hemi- 
sphere, sees him no more ; yet the moon sees him, 
and all night long catches his light and throws it 
down upon us. So the world sees not Christ in 
the gracious provisions of redemption which he 
holds for us in heaven, but through the illumina- 


THE CONVICTION OF THE SPIRIT 199 


tion of the Comforter the Church sees him; as it 
is written: ‘‘Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, 
neither have entered into the heart of man the 
things which God hath prepared for them that love 
him ; dut God hath revealed them unto us by his 
Spirit’’ (1 Cor. 2: 9, 10). And the Church, see- 
ing these things, communicates what she sees to 
the world. Christ is all and in al: ; and the Spirit 
receives and reflects him to the worid through his 
people. 
The moon above, the church below, 
A wondrous race they run ; 
But all their radiance, all their glow, 
Each borrows of its sun. 


‘« Of judgment, because the prince of this world 
ts judged.’’ Here, we believe, is a still farther 
advance in the revelation of the gospel, and not a 
retreat to the doctrine of a future judgment, as 
some would teach. For we repeat our conviction, 
that in this entire discourse the Holy Spirit is 
revealed to us as an evangel of Grace, and not as 
a sheriff of the Law. Hear the Apostle Peter once 
more, as, pointing to him who had been raised 
from the dead and seated in the heavenlies, he 
says: ‘‘ By him every one that believeth is justified 
from all things from which ye could not be justified 
by the law of Moses’’ (Acts 13: 39, R. V.). 
Justification, in the evangelical sense, is but another 
name for judgment prejudged and condemnation 
ended. In the enthroned Christ every question 
about sin is answered, and every claim ofa violated 
law is absolutely met; and though there is no 


200 THE MINISTRY OF THE SPIRIT 


abatement in the demands of the decalogue, yet 
because ‘‘ Christ has become the end of the law for 
righteousness to every one that believeth,’’ now 
‘“‘ grace reigns through righteousness unto eternal 
life by Jesus Christ our Lord.’’ Strange paradox 
set forth in Isaiah’s passion psalm: ‘‘By Azs stripes 
we are healed,’’ as though it were told us that sin’s 
smiting had procured sin’s remission. And so it 
is. If the Holy Spirit shows us the wounds of the 
dying Christ for condemning us, he immediately 
shows us the wounds of the exalted Christ for com- 
forting us. His glorified body is death’s certificate 
of discharge, the law’s receipt in full, assuring us 
that all the penalties of transgression have been 
endured, and the Sin-bearer acquitted. 

The meaning of this last conviction seems 
plain therefore : ‘‘Of judgment, because the prince 
of this world is judged.’’ Recall the words of 
Jesus as he stood face to face with the cross: 
‘‘ Now is the judgment of this world ; now shall 
the prince of this world be cast out’’ (John 12: 
31). . ‘‘ The accuser of the brethren ’’ is at last 
non-suited and ejected from court. The death of 
Christ is the death of death, and of the author of 
death also. ‘‘That through death he might 
destroy him that hath the power of death, that is, 
the devil ; and deliver them who, through fear of 
death, were all their lifetime subject to bondage ”’ 
(Heb. 2: 14, 15). Ifthe relation of Satan to our 
judgment and condemnation is mysterious, this 
much is clear, from this and several passages, 
that Christ by his cross has delivered us from his 


THE CONVICTION OF THE SPIRIT 201 


dominion. We must believe that Jesus spoke the 
literal truth when he said: ‘Verily, verily, I say 
unto you, he that heareth my word and _ believeth 
him that sent me, hath eternal life, and cometh 
not into judgment, but hath passed out of death 
into life’’ (John 5: 24, R. V.). On the cross 
Christ judged sin and acquitted those who believe 
on him ; and in heaven he defends them against 
every re-arrest by a violated law. ‘‘ There is 
therefore now no condemnation to them that are 
in Christ Jesus’? (Rom. 8:1). Thus the three- 
fold conviction brings the sinner the three stages 
of Christ’s redemptive work, past judgment and 
past condemnation into eternal acceptance with 
the Father. 

In striking antithesis with all this, we have an 
instance in the Acts of the threefold conviction of 
conscience, when Paul before Felix ‘‘ reasoned of 
righteousness, and temperance, and the judgment 
to come’’ (Acts 24: 25). Here the sin of a profli- 
gate life was laid bare as the apostle discoursed 
of chastity ; the claims of righteousness were vin- 
dicated, and the certainty of coming judgment 
exhibited ; and with the only effect that ‘Felix 
trembled.’’ So it must ever be under the convic- 
tions of conscience,—compunction but not peace. 
We have also an instructive contrast exhibited in 
Scripture, between the co-witness of the Spirit and 
the co-witness of conscience. ‘‘Zhe Spirit him- 
self beareth witness (cvupaprepei) that we are the 
children of God’’ (Rom. 8: 16). Here is the 
assurance of sonship, with all the divine inward 


202 THE MINISTRY OF THE SPIRIT 


persuasion of freedom from condemnation which 
it carries. On the other hand is the conviction of 
the heathen, who have only the law written in 
their hearts: ‘‘7heir conscience bearing witness 
(cvzuaptrpotvonc), their thoughts one with another 
accusing, or else excusing them, in the day when 
God shall judge the secrets of men’’ (Rom. 2: 
I5, 16). Conscience can ‘‘accuse,’’ and how 
universally it does so, abundant testimony of 
Christian missionaries shows ; and conscience can 
‘‘excuse,’’ which is the method that guilty 
thoughts invariably suggest ; but conscience cannot 
justify. Only the Spirit of truth, whom the Father 
hath sent forth into the world, can do this. The 
work of the two witnesses may be thus set in 
contrast : 


Conscience Convinces— The Comforter Convinces— 
Of sin committed; Of sin committed; 
Of righteousness impossible ; Of righteousness imputed ; 
Of judgment impending. Of judgment accomplished. 


Happily these two witnesses may be harmon- 
ized, as they are by that atonement which reconciles 
man to himself, as well as reconciles man to God. 
Very significantly does the Epistle to the Hebrews, 
in inviting our approach to God make, as the con- 
dition of that approach, the ‘‘ having our hearts 
sprinkled from an evil conscience.’’ As the High 
Priest carried the blood into the Holy of Holies in 
connection with the old dispensation, so does the 
Spirit take the blood of Christ into the inner sanc- 
tuary of our spirit in the more wondrous economy 
of the new dispensation, in order that he may 


° 


THE CONVICTION OF THE SPIRIT 203 


‘cleanse your conscience from dead works to 
serve the living God’’ (Heb. 9 : 14). Blessed is 
the man who is thus made at one with himself 
while made at one with God, so that he can Say : 
‘I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience 
also bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost’? (Rom. 
9:11). The believer's conscience dwelling in 
the Spirit, even as his life is ‘‘hid with Christ in 
God,’’ both having the same mind and bearing the 
same testimony—this is the end of redemption 
and this is the victory of the atoning blood. 


X 
THE ASCENT OF THE SPIRIT 


“The Apostle Paul evidently saw the redemption 
of the bodies of the saints and their manifestation as 
the sons of God and with them the redemption of the 
whole creation from its present bondage to be the com- 
plete harvest of the Spirit, whereof the church doth 
now possess only the first-fruits, that is, the first ripe 
grains which could be formed ito a sheaf and 
presented in the temple as a wave-offering unto the 
Lord. ‘That Holy Spirit of Promise which is the 
earnest of our inheritance,’ saith the same apostle— 
the earnest, like the first-fruit, being ouly a part of 
that which is to be earned. . . yet a_ sufficient 
surety that the whole shall in the fullness of the 
times, be likewise ours.’’—Zaward Lrving. 

206 


Xx 
THE ASCENT OF THE SPIRIT 


sei: that descended is the same also that 
} ascended up far above all heavens.” 
So writes the apostle concerning the 
Paraclete who is now with the Father, Jesus 
Christ the righteous ’’ (Eph. 4: 9). And what is 
true of the one is true of that ‘‘other Paraclete,’” 
the Holy Ghost, who was sent down to abide with 
us during this age. When he has accomplished 
his temporal mission in the world he will return to 
heaven in the body which he has fashioned for 
himself—that ‘‘one new man,’’ the regenerate 
church, gathered out from both Jews and Gentiles 
during this dispensation. For what is the rapture 
of the saints predicted by the apostle when, at the 
sound of the trumpet and the resurrection of the 
righteous dead, ‘‘ we which are alive and remain 
shall be caught up together with them in the clouds 
to meet the lord in the air’’? (1 Thess. 4: 17). 
It is the earthly Christ rising to meet the heavenly 
Christ; the elect church, gathered in the Spirit 
and named 6 ypiords (1 Cor. 12: 12), taken up to 
be united in glory with ‘‘ Christ, the Head of the 


207 


208 THE MINISTRY OF THE SPIRIT 


church, himself the Saviour of the body "’ (Eph. 
5 : 23, R. V.). In the council at Jerusalem this is 
announced as the distinctive work of the Spirit in 
this dispensation ‘‘to gather out a people Jor his 
name.’’ Tt was not by accident and as a term of 
derision that the first believers received their name : 
but ‘‘the disciples were divinely called Christians 
first in Antioch’’ (Acts 11 : 26). This was the 
name pre-ordained for them, that ‘honorable 
name’ by which they are called (James 2 : a 
When, therefore, this out-gathering shall have 
been accomplished, and she people jor his name 
shall be completed, they will be translated to be 
one with him in glory, as they were one with him 
in name, the Head taking the body to himself, 
“‘as Christ also, the church '’ (Eph. 5:29). And 
this translation of the church is to be effected by 
the Holy Spirit who dwells in her. ‘But if the 
Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead 
dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the 
dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his 
Spirit that dwelleth in you (Rom. 8:11). It is 
not by acting upon the body of Christ from with- 
out, but by energizing it from within, that the 
Holy Ghost will effect its glorification. In a word, 
the Comforter, who on the day of Pentecost, came 
down to form a body out of flesh, will at the 
Parousia return to heaven in that body, having 
fashioned it like unto the body of Christ, that it 
may be presented to him ‘not having spot, or 
wrinkle, or any such thing, . . holy and with- 
out blemish ’’ (Eph. 5 : 27). Is it meant to be 


THE ASCENT OF THE SPIRI7’ 209 


implied in what is here said that the Comforter is 
to leave the world at the time of the advent, to 
return no more? By nomeans. And yet whatis 
meant needs to be very explicitly set forth. 

A very able writer on the doctrine of the Spirit 
makes this remark, so striking and yet so true 
that we have put it in italics: ‘(As Christ shall 
ultimately give up his kingdom to the Father (1 
Cor. 15 : 24-28), so that the Holy Ghost shall give 
up his administration to the Son, when he comes 
in glory and all his holy angels with him.’’' The 
church and the kingdom are not identical terms, 
if we mean by the kingdom the visible reign and 
government of Jesus Christ on earth. In another 
sense they are identical. As the King, so the 
kingdom. The King is present now in the world, 
only invisibly and by the Holy Spirit; so the 
kingdom is now present invisibly and spiritually 
in the hearts of believers. The King is to come 
again visibly and gloriously ; so shall the king- 
dom appear visibly and gloriously. In other 
words, the kingdom is already here in mystery : 
it is to be here in manifestation. Now the spirit- 
ual kingdom is administered by the Holy Ghost, 
and it extends from Pentecost to Parvousia. At 
the /arousta—the appearing of the Son of Man 
in glory—when he shall take unto himself his 
great power and reign (Rev. 11 : 17), when he 
who has now gone into a far country, to be invested 
with a kingdom, shall return and enter upon his 


1“ Through the Eternal Spirit,” by Elder Cumming, is D., 
p. 185 


14 


210 THE MINISTRY OF THE SPIRIT 


government (Luke Ig: 15), then the invisible 
shall give way to the visible; the kingdom in 
mystery shall emerge into the kingdom in mani- 
festation, and the Holy Spirit’s administration 
shall yield to that of Christ. 

Here our discussion properly ends, since the 
age-ministry of the Holy Spirit terminates with the 
return of Jesus Christ in glory. But there is an 
‘‘age to come’’ (Heb. 6: 5), succeeding ‘the 
present evil age’’ (Gal. 1 : 4), and we may, in 
closing, take a glimpse at that for the light which 
it may throw upon the present dispensation. 

What significance has the phrase, ‘‘the first- 
Jruits of the Spirit, which several times occurs in 
the New Testament? The first-fruits is but a 
handful compared with the whole harvest; and 
this is what we have in the gift of ‘the Holy 
Spirit of promise, which is the earnest of our 
inheritance until the redemption of the purchased 
Bossesston’’ (Eph. 1: 13, 14). The harvest, to 
which all the first-fruits look forward, is at the 
appearing of the Lord. Christ, by his rising from 
the dead, became ‘‘¢he Jirst-fruits of them that 
slept’ (1 Cor. 15 : 20). The full harvest, of 
course, is at the advent, when ‘‘they that are 
Christ's at his coming ’’ shall be raised up (1 Cor. 
15 : 23). So of the Holy Ghost. We have all 
the Spirit, but of al/ of the Spirit. As a person of 
the Godhead, he is here in his entirety ; but as to 
his ministry, we have as yet but a part or earnest 
of his full blessing. To make this statement plain, 
let us observe that the work of the Holy Spirit, 


THESASCENT] OF) THE: SPIRIT 211 


during this entire dispensation, is elective. He 
gathers from Jew and Gentile the body of Christ, 
the ecclesia, the called-out. This is his peculiar 
work in this gospel age. In a word, the present 
is the age of election, and not of universal 
ingathering. 

But is this all we have to hope for? Let the 
word of God answer. Paul, in considering the 
hope of Israel, says that there is at this present 
time ‘‘a remnant according to the election of 
grace’’, and a little farther on he declares that in 
connection with the coming of the Deliverer ‘‘ ai 
Israel shall be saved’’ (Rom. 11: 5, 26). Here 
is an elective out-gathering, and then a universal 
in-gathering ; or, as the apostle sums it up in this 
same chapter: ‘‘ Uf the first frutts be holy, so also 
the lump.’ On the other hand, James, speaking 
by the Holy Ghost concerning the Gentiles, says 
first that ‘‘God did visit the Gentiles 70 fake out 
of them a people for his name,’’ and ‘‘ after this 
will I return,’’ etc., ‘‘ that the residue of men 
might seek after the Lord, and ai the Gentiles 
upon whom my name ts called, satth the Lor Vy 
(Acts 15 14, 17). Here, again, is first an elec- 
tive out-gathering and then a total in-gathering. 

‘‘Now, by looking at other scriptures, it seems 
clear that the Holy Spirit is the divine agent in 
both these redemptions, the partial and the total. 
If we refer to Joel’s great prophecy : ‘‘ 7 weld four 
out my Spirit upon all fiesh,’’ and then to Peter's 
reference to the same, as recorded in the Acts, we 
are led to ask, Was this prediction completely ful- 


212 THE MINISTRY OF THE SPIRIT 


filled on the day of Pentecost? Clearly not. 
Peter, with inspired accuracy, says: ‘‘ Thzs zs that 
which was spoken by the prophet Joel,’ without 
affirming that herein the prophecy of Joel was 
entirely fulfilled. Turning back to the prediction 
itself, we find that it includes within its sweep 
‘‘the great and the terrible day of the Lord,’’ and 
the ‘‘ bringing again of the captivity of Judah and 
Jerusalem ’’ (Joel 2: 31; 3: 1), events which are 
clearly yet future. If again we examine the vivid 
prophecy of Israel’s conversion, we observe that 
their looking upon him whom they pierced, and 


mourning for him, follows the prediction: ‘And 


I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the 
inhabitants of Jerusalem the Spirit of grace and 
supplication ’’ (Zech. 12: 10). So in the picture 
of the desolations of Jerusalem, as they have 
actually existed during the present age, the 
prophet represents this judgment of thorns and 
briars and forsaken palaces and desertion of popu- 
lation, as continuing ‘‘ until the Spirit be poured 
upon us from on high’’ (Isaiah 32: 15). 

Indeed the Scriptures seem to be harmonious 
in their teaching that, after the present elective 
work of the Spirit has been completed, there will 
come a time of universal blessing, when the Spirit 
shall literally be ‘‘ poured out upon all flesh’’ ; 
when ‘‘that which is perfect shall come’’ and 
‘‘that which is in part shall be done away.’’ 

Thus in the doctrine of the Spirit there is a con- 
stant reference to the final consummation. ‘‘ The 
Holy Spirit of God, in whom ye were sealed undo 


Oe 


CHB SASCENT. OF -LHE, SPIRIT 213 


the day of redemption,’ says Paul (Eph. 4 : 30). 
Again, ‘‘ Ourselves also which have the first-fruits 
of the Spirit, even we ourselves, groan within our- 
selves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, che 
redemption of our body’ (Rom. 8 : 23). 

All which the Comforter has yet brought us, or 
can now bring us, is only the first sheaf of the 
great harvest of redemption which awaits us on 
our Lord's return. ‘‘ Ye have received the Spirit 
of adoption, whereby we cry Abba, Father”’ 
(Rom. 8 : 15) ; but for the adoption itself we wait ; 
sons of God already by birth from above, we with 
the whole creation yet wait for ‘‘ the manifestation 
of the sons of God’’ (Rom. 8 : 19). 

To his tender exhortation to be patient until 
the coming of the Lord, which James writes in the 
first chapter of his epistle, there is added the sug- 
gestive illustration: ‘‘ Behold the husbandman 
waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, being 
patient over it until it receive the early and latter 
rain.’’ As in husbandry the one rain belonged to 
the time of sowing, and the other to the time of 
harvest, so in redemption the early rain of the 
Spirit was at Pentecost, the latter rain will be at 
the Parousia ; the one fell upon the world as the 
first sowers went forth into the world to sow, the 
other will accompany ‘‘the harvest which is 
the end of the age,’’ and will fructify the earth 
for the final blessing of the age to come, bringing 
repentance to Israel and the remission of sins, 
‘‘that the times of refreshing may come from the 
presence of the Lord, and that he may send Jesus 


214 THE MINISTRY OF THE SPIRIT 


Christ, before appointed for you, whom the 
heavens must receive until the times of the restitu- 
tion of all things’’ (Acts 3 : 19-21). 


SCRIPTURE INDEX 


PAGE PAGE 
Genesis 50: 13 ............60. 185 Matthew. 3\311)...8 254.4... 64 
Matthew 12 : 28 ............6 82 
Exodus 30: 30-33............ 161 Matthew 3:11, R. V....... 84 
Matthew 16 : 24, 25......... 114 
MOVILICUS IAG vcsscctotesateoter 36 Matthew 6: 27, R. V...... . 120 
Leviticus 23 : 11-16........ 36, 37 Matthew 18 :19..........000 154 
MESVitlCus: Sis] 2 toc tcecesects 95 
Leviticus 14 :17......000.0« 95 MarkitS eSoF a wa eee 54 
Marks 2 eySGe ounces cates: 174 
sea Te 11 Gs nce oaevessices 95 
Titkel$ is 2250.7 ee ced sacanoe 
DISAMUe], 2.7 oe ecseseseres 174 PUkeG ALR EL te 89 
TKO) Sie caededoes de aclccoe 94 
ERAN S19) 1G f.cs.see.esn- 95 WORK CHO tO rea ccrabtecerenevede 143 
TLE CL2 Sel OP, wceeretienesticeeee 185 
PR ALINS LOGS Ls Qiescinessso dase 66a Lake 23473545. hesitant 191 
PRAIMIS V7 1D dic ecccetce eeese 119 Puke 19 bn... cdstescesseee 210 
MSA Ms/ $426 Kicccass cateseses 128 
: Psalms 17: 15...... Seottcccksss 130 DON WM 14s 23 cc .ccsen oes te 28 
TO My LINDA eiietecee canes sone 31 
TASC WER 0p Bs a 83 JOHN QO 7ee cccscarteteascuse 38 
saiah 59: 2520 Zascsceetoosceees 179 DONMIIS 1 2Gie ese vedew coset tes 43 
TsalalS2 21 secescteccacisecs 212) Sohn 4721613014518 oe 46 
PON 142 26.0 16218 res tece 47 
BOON 2 2 SIT. srosscccscec teeta 219. ec TONIGHT ess tee sessseee te 48 
MOC licseils.scsueesecscestascecsts AD TAT ODM 428 ci. dsscecesseeceetees 50 
SoHMAGH1S 714 12k. ee 51 
PRT OS 97 Lbs ccdonancnacencceesse 180 John 16: 8-10; 15: 26..... 52 
SONI, L627 1S erasessdecasscs 53 
Zechariah 12 : 10............ 212 “John.16.:.18, Ri Viw..02i25: (54 


216 


PAGE 
DOD Grea lecemeneecereerseee tet 57 
VODNGIA Sisal 4521S ecsseece 57 
JONNMs ISS peewee eet 66 
JOHMSiwlOe ela Secs 75 
SOME Dor Oesenhadesaveess pecesices 83 
Do OWI Geto deere ceetenerceereee 84 
SONU Gis Cotcesescconsts nreeeeress 85 
SOUT DS R24 eee eeee eee 86 
John 16:18; 14:17; 15: 

262 S1GIS UD act caenceeetaee 98 
VON So lisiS 3 Saeeteeeees 107 
OEM Sitiss UrosmV clevecwesesnee 108 
VON Socecececeees eee e cece 118 
Ago eben h Ney Fee es 128 
WODTIIA %s 2oteccce teeeeceeetes 148 
DONG ii2ovseacrectrceteteeee 152 
John 20% 22, Ri Vs. tec: 169 
JODN,Gi63; Le Verses 173 
JOHN TOM Os 1 Ake 178 
John 16: 8, R. V.; 14:17 189 
John 16; 8-12, R. V.......... 190 
VOD pl 2eeee ne eseese eee 191 
ODN LO nalsecee ce essa 196 
JOHMIG SIS AR AV ucce.tetace 197 
Sohnyles 19. css fhe 198 
JOUMN2 +31 cesta 200 
JOHN.) 5245 RVing eeteee 201 
SA CUSI9 2 Bl izicscceetete reece 57 
Acts 2:41; 5:14; 11:24 63 
FACUS LO LOS cocescceeret en cates 66 
ACLS AT 1 Gets cen ee ee 67 
A CESa2coS.csce se cee ae eee 77 
Cts 8:16:17 oh 81 
PACES) LS, 2e-7 eb e eer sched 82 
ACIS: 2 42 OR ot shes ae 89 
Acts9:17; 4:8; 4:31; 

Biri D recy mace cco es 90 
Acts 4:27, R.V.;10:38. 94 
‘A CHS LOIN 28 sees ete te 138 
Acts:20:5 28, Be Voc a2 139 


ACtS 10 : 44 oo... csccseeee vee 150 


SCRIPTURE INDEX 


PAGE 
ACIS BO casas 155 
Acts:148, Kh. .Vawiswes 
13 6455 1 Sit Seema meee 164 
Acts 18°: 62 15:8. 15%) 
28:16:56) Fee 165 
ACIS i316 \o ance ee 174 
‘A Cts 15 2-105 ee 180 
Acts. 7/588... ke erences 183 
Acts TRACE Ae 185 
Acts. § 14 15 ssc 193 
ACTS 2eico teens pesteak taste 195 
Acts 5: 80-82 2.25: 196 
WACES'13): SON Hew ereeeteeee 199 
Acts 242525" a eae 201 
Acts 11226008, sak eit 208 
ACtwBe15 2? 1401752 e eee 211 
ACtS:3 519) incocse eeee 214 
Romans). 46s. 53 
Romans 8. 90... 202i 65 
Romans6 :8; 42.:,..c00sd0n 69 
Romans, 8): 25. .h eee 70 
Romans 6117 @.3.459 12 
Romans 11639) Reese 88 
Romans ly4 2c eee 113 
Romans.6 :.8 4... Siac 114 
Romans 7:4; 6:11,R. 

Ws Geshedccss eee Mee 115 
Romans.8; 13 2.2.12 116 
Romans 8: 2; 15: 30....... 117 
Romans)$2 23's) Siilizeen 124 
Romans 12: 2, R. V.: 

Lill ee eee 128 
Romans 8 : 26, 27, R. V. .. 153 
Romans 8:: 26s... ete 176 
Romans 11/526 2)... 179 
Romans .3:ii25Rs View else 
Romans '8 2178 16n.-0 201 
Romans 2.515, 16.76 202 
Romans: 92) Ul. eee 203. 
Romans 8\1le es 208. 


SCRIPTURE INDEX 


PAGE 

Romans& 23; 8:15;8: 
LO Bresette cacaron sents 2138 
PeOOLTIN TN ANS Las Lalverse 62 
moorinth ans 12213 2c. 63 


1 Corinthians 10:1 ......... 65 
1 Corinthians2:11,R.V. 96 


ECOL MIAWS) 1 sas ces teee 97 
1 Corinthians 15 : 51, 52.. 125 
1 Corinthians.1d:.62)...... 129 
1 Corinthians 15: 44 ...... 130 
ACOLINTRIAMS: Schl G ccc.cses 136 
a Corinthians 2:24 i. .c<..3. 148 
1 Corinthians 10 :11...... 161 
1 Corinthians 12:11, R 

BV ied dace eects heron temtents 170 
1 Corinthians 2: 10-13...... 177 
1 Corinthians 14 : 87 ...... 183 


1 Corinthians 2: 9, 10..... 184 
1 Corinthians 12: 3,R. V.; 


YOM GRRE rho Hee e 197 
} Corinthians 2: 9, 10..... 199 
TCorinthians 12 +12. ...... 207 
1 Corinthians 15 : 24-28... 209 


1 Corinthians 15 : 20; 15: 
D1 a i PR AOE ES 210 


2 Corinthians1:21,22.. 8 
2 Corinthians! :21,R.V. 94 
% Corinthians5:14,R. V. 115 
2 Corinthians3: 18, R. V. 119 


2':Gorinthians 3.¢ 18......:.. 127 
PAO OTINTMIANSIS, oc ceeceee ees 13, 

ALA LIATIS( 0% 20 scsse peed s-tas 65 
Galatians! 477 O.jcscssteavexee 77 
Galatians 3 12+°3 214)... 78 
era iA S49) 1 9c ccc. ete ences 100 
Galatians 2; 20, R. V ..... 115 
PTALAELATIG LD). 1 G.cccs cee et secs 121 
GAATIANIS oc 42.07 ciesecsseres 127 


Galatians 1: 


PAGE 
Galatians Gi2ieesseaeess 159 
Galatians 6:8, R. V....... 164 
Galatians 2142. csscs.esssee 210 


Ephesians 1:7; 3:16.... 49 
Ephesians 1 : 20, 21.......... 53 


Hphesians 42,502. 2. scssecess 64 
Ephesians 6 : 18 ...........06 65 
Ephesians 4 : 16.............. 69 
Ephesians 1 : 18............+. 85 
Ephesians 4.: 30.............. 87 
EPRESIaNS Se81S in. ..sns-se-0i co 
Ephesians 4 : 24.............. 112 
plesians 2eoliatcccceeres 115 
Ephesians 4: 812, R. V. 140 
Ephesians 6': 18 .:.:...22...2. 153 
Ephesians 5: 19; 2: 22, 

ley Wids BY BUGS My AYES 

Diehl Sh Risa Vieenssens acts 158 
Ephesians 4 :9 ............... 207 
Ephesians 5: 23; 5: 29; 

Dit QT sshaciek docs apuatee se 208 
Ephesians 1: 13, 14......... 210 
Ephesians 4 : 30...........00 213 


Philippians 2:6,7,R.V. 50 


COIGSSIATISI pie arcccereesteneee 70 
GOLOSSIATISio LO acsesenceere 112 
COlOSSTa NS 213%. sae. eee LD 
Colossians 3: 2,5, R. V... 116 
(COLOSSIS. NSibcs GO acceececcess 160 


1 Thessalonians 2:19..... 57 
1 Thessalonians 3: 13..... 68 
1 Thessalonians 1: 9Q..... 108 


1 Thessaionians 3: 13.R. 

NW ee Spt hs en - 126 
1 Thessalonians 5: 23,R. 

DV ais nate Cae calrene 127, 
1 Thessalonians 1:5...... 149 
1 Thessalonians 1: 6...... 150 


218 


PAGE 
1 Thessalonians4:18 ... 160 
1 Thessalonians 4; 17...... 207 
2 Thessalonians 2: 4...... 136 
2Timothyi2s loess 86 
2 Timothy 316.2380. 172 
Titus 2 ASR V vessels 124 
Hebrews 1? 92. e kiss 66 
Hebrews 9 : 14 .......00..00 82 
Hebrews.1::.82)...220818 97 
Hebrews 6: 4, 5, R, V.... 126 
Hebrews 6: 5, R. V. ...... 128 
Hebrews2.3.t, ch..3482: 150 
Hebrews 7 : 25, R. V. ...... 153 
Hebrews:3 : 13 ..3....csesceee 159 
Hebrews 8: 15 ssceveseeseeese 162 
Hebrews 8: 7. .........c00ee 175 
Hebrews O32 acs: 195 
Hebrews 10: 14, 15......... 197 
Hebrews 9: 8 ........0c00008 198 
Hebrews 2: 14, 15........... 200 
Hebrews 9 : 14.............. . 203 
Hebrews 6 (2°6)o..54, v.dscsees 210 
JAMES Tss18is. ccs eee 111 
JBMESS 1.15. .0.. 5. tee 130 
James 5:16;5:16, R. V. 159 
James 2» .7higivececcccevuenes 208 
1 Peteri4 36..55.55-22... Seerote 65 


SCRIPTURE INDEX 


PAGE 

1,.Peter: 2 39> Ril Vioeeees 95 

LR eter 13235 Rae Vice 111 

1 Peter. 45:14 ep sen seaees 123 
LiPeterei sZt eres cee 148 
NLP eter 522 Ge eee 159 
LPeter sd S23 /ReVe eae 174 

iePeter Ui LO siiaseeastee 177 

VPeter4 svi eres 183 
lp Peter'3 salS iycr.cccseeeneaeee 193 
2sPeter: 114, Raviaeece cass 110 
2 Peters Sok RaVerre 178 
L John 2: Wise tet 46 
A JObNI 2 20 eee ree 96 
LI Ob 2 Dis ee eee 96 
Loh Sei eee ares 105 
Job Seis Ogres ases 121 
LJObN Seb NG cme 122 
I Johni3)22) Rai Vee 
LJohni4? 162s. 183 
1 Johni2t is 6 ae 197 
Jide L247... i ae 128 
JIUGEWIALIA er ete 180 
JUGGLE 20 Aescduseseeceteaee 153 
Revelation 22: 17............ 57 
Revelation 1: 18 ........... 69 

Revelation 3 ; 3 ........... tor | 

RevelationG 22 site 139 


Revelation 2:7; 14:18.. 174 
Revelation 11 : 17 ........... 209 


GENERAL INDEX 


PAGE 

AGAIN LAV OLitcssssttarseses 108 
Ghildi ore eect maa 
nature derived from... 113 
inheritance from......... 123 


Adam-life: birth into ... 110 
Adolph Monod : fare- 
WOEILIOLcitecstet.atsnesce. 186 
Age ofthe Spirit: defined 23 
Age-work : continuance 


Ambrose: observation of 38 
Ananias and Sapphira: 


BITVOL Merete otens teeters 30 
Andrews, Bishop: beau- 
tiful words of ......... 62 
Anointing: importance 
OES ee een na vars contonedecss 44, 45 
examples of ..... ...... 44, 45 


Anti-Pentecostal days: 
spiritual nonage of.. 55 
Apostles: Matthias 


ODOSEN DY %.c.020.>:- 141, 142 
prerogatives of............ 170 
order of ceased............ 171 
Asceticism : inversion of 
divine order ............ 117 
Augustine : quotation 
ATOM cscs cdeatintes telees oes 26 
ealls Pentecost............ 7 


saying of true............ 28 
replies to rationalists.. 184 


PAGE 
Baptism : amonogram... 114 
Baptized : into Moses.... 69 
Bengel : statement of...... 47 


Bible : Holy Ghost 
breathes within it 173,174 
divine author of ......... 180 
infallibility of %..2..082. 182 
- asensitive plant......... 184 
Bickersteth, E. H.; quo- 
tation {rompeest i 88 


Boys, E.: extractfrom... 76 
Butler, Archer : quota- 
TON GTLOM eee. ceees sto 38 


Calvary: typology of..... 35 


once for allieecss. secs 67 
Calvin, John: quotation 
LrOMLHS rete cees cesses 42 
Canon Garratt: excerpt 
ATOM NE See Mire ucenees 143 
Cartwright: extract from 194 
Choirs : composed of...... 159 
Christ:tlifeoteieew 22 
OW, Cart heee...:.ckctee ee 29 
inspired characteriza- 
tions Of tise. easneaces 31 
TMALKS Diss: cathaspeeaeens 32 
fulfils all types............ 34 
OUP’ PASSOVER: ..ccsedesesee 36 
earthly work of, com- 
DISLCD ih os.-sigtar cs coldares 37 


220 

PAGE 

Christ : ready to be com- 
MUNIGALEO see scacsessaseees 38 
expiatory work of ..... 38 
accepted by God......... 39 
fortells Comforter...... 46 
the testator cc. ..sscesccerens 49 
indwelling of.............. 49 
generosity of............... 51 
earthly—equal to ........ 51 
power to impart ......... 52 
COrODatION OLt....sreces 53 
Players Ol, years 57 
mystical body of......... 61 
PIESeNt: DY Aessstescsietesemee 61 
visible union Of ......... 62 
manifestation of......... 68 
ind welt DY s..cccistessccees 68 
description of ............ 69 
vivifying power of...... 70 
Cishiguredeasc.c- cscs 71 

twofold manifestation 
OLR Toho: Seeidearnc haan ral 
faith of, ignored ......... 76 
our justification ......... 76 
effective service for..... 82 
example in allthings.. 82 
OUT PATEL. )...cs+s seus ees 83 


endued by the Spirit... 84 
possessed DY ..-.°....00s..| 64 
holiness essential to... 87 


draws to himself......... 88 
justification in............ 95 
the Holy Oner 2.4: 96 
OGeity Olt. een 97 
Imase'of'Godhs.+)--ee 97 
Conformity, to Gesee.cse- 100 
made atonement......... 101 
treasure hidden in...... 106 


the heartofthe church 106 
begotten by Holy Ghost 111 
Originiofs lifes 112 
nature derived from... 113 


INDEX 


PAGE 


Christ: came as Saviour.. 115 


efficacy of his sacrifice 115 


victory through .......... 116 
manifested love of...... 118 
pattern of God ........... 119 
imparting life ............ 122 
inheritance from ........ 123 
Official seat Of. escesee 136 
bride of, betrayed....... 138 | 
living voice of.... ...... 145 
identification with ...... 152 
helping us to pray ...... 153 
attitude of, described.. 178 
divinity Of; ses 180 
spirit of, necessary ...... 182 
threefold work of:........ 190 
died for the sins of the 
WOrldt. Sere 192 
satisfied God ............... 192 
perfected righteousness 193 
our High Priestess 194 
resurrection of............ 195 
enthronement Of......... 196 
lifted to heaven ......... 197 — 


continuance of within 
theiveelgini.< gece 198 
not seen by the world.. 198 
reflected by the Spirit.. 199 
answers all questions 199 
death Of 0.0. eee ee 
judged sin onthe cross 201 
redemptive work of ... 201 
administration of ...... 210 
the first-fruits .............. 210 


Christ - life ; spiritual | 


birth intes*s. ae 110 


Christian Church: home 


of the Spirit. ............ 28 


Christian doctrine : un- 


developed in:. ta.s:2s0m 54 


Christian life: crisisin.. 91 


a gradual growth......... 100 


: 
; 
’ 
! 
. 


guidance of the Lord 


PORE ce rcontrercer ere eccas. 138 
Hann aNitOldve.cces sees 142 
dead yet living............ 144 


appointments in State 144 
Spirit withdrawn from 146 
feature of worship in.. 159 
service of, described ... 158 
fellowship with head 

160 
requirements of ..... 165, 166 
Spirit sent unto............ 190 


INDEX PAID | 
PAGE PAGE 
Christian life: possibili- Church : communica- 
RICH Of Sicuceeetececreseetsse 102 tions of to the world.. 199 
Christians : good text for 71 translation of .............. 208 
ignorance Of............ 80,81 Comforter: anothergiven 23 
PriVilegelOL ce. 0.5 ciee 99 indwelling of............... 28 
CLIGL Ol earns escdssesoce te 122 COMIN GOL ve.seeeene-sceesaes 29 
possessors of the Spirit 170 presence Of..........:.... 66 39 
prove veracity of Scrip- foretold by Christ ....... 46 
EUTO! ceccecseresoxchessccseses 186 reverent subjection of 48 
- divine naming of ...... 208 TENOTAD GOL sii cvs eents es 81 
Church: first capital sin - Jesus’ promise of......... 105 
Or saaaseea testes. cote etteee oe 30 witness of the.............. 149 
temple of God ............ 31 sending of the ........:... 152 
BITMAP CAO! <asvccekens aces te 32 ministry of the............ 153 
greater riches for ........ 56 return ofto heaven...... 208 
history of begun ......... 61 consolation of .......... . 218 
GeHNItION Of 7.5. cs.eveecr =< 61 Communion: significance 
AGFIMALION OF 1.2, <.. .0nees oss 62 OL MR eae 105 
introduction into ........ 63 through Holy Spirit ... 112 
unsanctified, sometimes 67 Conscience: definition 
to be like Jesus.... ....... 69 and work of )\.2....1.:: 191 
appellation of.............. 70 accusing power Of ...... 202 
complement of her Conversion : definition of 85 
MGOLG thccaticccconsesneeesesas 790 Course of redemption: 
disfigures Christ ......... 71 Moberly’s divisions... 2¢ 
Paraclete abidesin..... 76 Cross: plain attractions of 162 
effective service in...... g2 Cumming, J. Elder ; quo- 
monograph of ............ 85 tation TrOnice..coseeces 80 
Christ the heart of........ 106 excerpt from............ 92, 93 
the temple of God ...... 136 quotation from...... 184, 209 


Day of Pentecost: Holy 
- Spirit embodied in 
the church at........... 29 


Death: division of......... 114 
Disciple : requirements 
OLR eee eens: 120 
Dispensation . mystery 
ANG SlOLVIOl eer 32 
Divine love : source of... 118 
Divine ministries: suc- 
CESSIOIN Ols-c-ces eecss ness 34 


222 


PAGE 
Ephesians : description 
LDlandeseycrsteass taedsdacstedscs 32 
Exodus: typical illustra- 
tion of ..... AN PALE OoLe 66 


Father: Jesus’ return to 22 

Felix: reference to...... 201 

Fuller, Andrew: state- 
IMETIROL ask ce. aveessee cts 193 


Gaussen’s Theopneustia : 
quotation from......... 168 
Gentiles: door opened to 67 
God: omnipresence of... 29 

union of, to humanity 


29, 30 
indwelling with men... 31 
becomes known........... 32 
emanation from ......... 46 
witness’ OF 23. 25issie tee 84 
withholding from ...... 86 
ClAIMIS! Off. chs. cette one 115 
Christ, pattern of......... 119 
total surrender to........ 121 
action of Spirit of........ 127 
manifestation of ......... 129 
SllGiny BU -ccctett 131 
created all men........... 109 
communion with, im- 
periled:27ceit ain 163 
Godet: beautiful words 
OL SIRE NE eee nts 91 
Godhead : mysterious 
TATE CY Shave ceased, Hasoasceas ne > 
DOLSONS Ofii,. cscs caccecests 28 
co-equal partner in...... 29 
earthly ministry of...... 33 


distinctly foreshadowed 35 
Paraclete a memberof 46 
mutual converseof ... 54 
our relations to............ 75 
CXECULIVE OF .....0.ccerers. 83 


INDEX 


PAGE 
God-Jehovah: economy 
of, incomplete ......... 34 
God's communion: bro- 
ken and restored...... 38 
Great Commission: mea- 
gre giving for the...... 162 


record of giving of the 168 
Gregory Nazianzen: quot- 


OO iS eswheceereceek eee eaten 60 
Hare, Julius Charles: 

exttactifrom®.:.. 7 188 
Harnack, Prof.: state- 

MONGOLS. tesscasacee ee 68 
Heresy : meaning of...... 121 
Holiness : explanation 

OL, Ans. ncueaeveretaueaee eae 87 


synonymous name for 119 
Holy Ghost: ‘dies nat- 


alis; ofsi27 eee 27 
personality of ............ 45 
office’ Of Lek. aekesstes ee 47 
WOrk Of. cede terse ties 49 


communicates power.. 51 
great work of begun... 62 


statement of ............... 68° 
all filled with ............. 64 
baptized “in...:)diccaisa 65 
LNCCION Ole. essere 66 


incorporation into body 
of Christ through...... 67 


baptism of the......... So Oo 
unceasing work of...... 70 
view of, urged ............ 7 

possession of............... 78 
faith toward ............... 78 
traits of:....pisscvccseveate 79 
blessings of. .iis) destae.dece 80 
ignorance regarding... 80 
Christ begotten by..... 83 
fullness Of ..si aes 84 


incidents regarding ..90, 91 


INDEX 223 


PAGE 

Holy Ghost: inherit- 
ONCOL isiveks ss RON 91 
Be eiipett asses 99 

crisis brought by a full 
reception Ofe.2...28.; 100 
has been given............ 100 

present office-work of 

105, 106 
Operation Of ........0....:. 113 
hidden life of .............. 125 
completed in us........... 131 
the one Administrator 135 
prerogative of ............ 136 


insubordination to 140, 141 
appoints leaders ... 141, 142 


elders chosen by ......... 143 
ignoring voice of......... 144 
preaching in the......... 148 
inspiration of, ignored 150 
God’s interpreter......... 152 
prayer in the............... 155 
office of, magnified...... 157 
Dnction of 4st 160 


attempted purchase of 162 
minute directions of ... 165 


action of, supreme ...... 170 
renewing power of...... 173 
breathes within the 
Binleieni. 78%. 178, 174 
position regarding ...... 176 
testimony of Paul to ... 176 
regeneration by ......... 178 
David’s words concern- 
BTUS ch coshaptacscbacksn «ete 185 
disciples, recipients of 189 
presentation of............ 192 
the gift of the.............. 195 
sent by the Lord ......... 198 
temporal mission of ... 207 
administration of ........ 209 


PAGE 
Holy Spirit: lack of 
attention to ............ 21 
consideration of ......... 22 
best treatise on............ 22 
age-ministry of............ 22 
vagueness of doctrine 
OLRM bees 22 
Jesus’ presence by...... 23 
temporal mission of ... 23 
dispensation of............ 23 
made partakers of ...... 24 
came into the world ... 28 
resides on earth ......... 28 
abides perpetually in 
ehurehs 5 ade 29 
deference paid to ........ 30 
ind welling of............... 32 
Son revealed by ......... 32 
relation of stated by 
Tepheree sec oes 33 
descent Ofte. Ue 34 
commended by Christ 34 
Olice of hie ee 37 
Sent GOWN s.ii0. 43 .s0 cece 38 
filled-with ii wei 39 
B WItMCSS es 5056.56. fveccdoceee 40 
“dies natalis’’ of ...... 40 
named by our Lord... .. 43 
subordination to ......... 48 


distributes the estate... 49 
the divine Conveyancer 50 
communicates power... 51 


advent oficai Re 56 
prays with church ...... 57 
history*6fi 2 63 
union through ............ 70 
duty to receive............ 76 
personality of ............ 80 


ignorance regarding... 80 
reception of gift of...... 86 
our signet ring ............ 86 
will be the seal ......... 88 


224 INDEX 


PAGE PAGB 
Holy Spirit: interprets Inspiration: Jesus claims 
Himpsel fii sasieeate. 92 Verbal «..s.secctss. weet 176 
is the anointing ......... 95 of the Holy Ghost ...... 176 
recognition of ............ 99 of Scripture writers...... 177 
Agent One eee 105 Irving, Edward ; beauti- 
power ofss78: Sees 107 ful statement of 125, 126 
conveyance Of ..........., 110 quotation from ........... 206 
the Executor............... 114 Isaiah : passion-prophecy 
subdues sinful nature 116 Of ...<cscsssa ene eee 194 
Subjection to........ Juice 131 TeferenCe tO svv.c-tsneeeeees 200 
designation of............ 135 
guidanceoli wikis 137. James: words ol............ 211 
administration of........ 138 exhortation of ............ 213 
in church service ........ 147. = Jesus: surprising saying 
Witness of 52:...c.eeeek 149 Of}. ..xcovee eee 2h 
supremacy of .............. 151 pre-existence of ......... 27 
prayer inspired by ..... 154 agent in creation ........ 27 
in missions of the birth of2ic, Aine 28 
CDUPCH aac cripeas tte 08 sublime word of ......... 28 
acts and speaks ........... 174 mysterious saying of... 29 
directing power olf...... 179 not yet glorified ......... 33 
sovereign individu- paschal talk of ............ 46 
BLIGY. Of ce ataratasees tne OO atoning blood of......... 47 
inimitableness of ........ 181 farewell sermon of...... 51 
authenticates books for teaching of .........ccn 58 
UB ne vecvwnesccncacssas casas .. 183 PArousia Ofities es eee 56 
ground of conviction All inelastic cies, acute 69 
OES (Pee oo elected neat 191 replies Oeste cate 82 
an evangel of grace..... 199 full of the Spirit ...... Lvpt 
imparts tO US...........004 200 spirit ofi2h..cecareeae 97 
church translated by... 208 significant saying of ... 111 
Person of the Godhead 210 Question Of ......sescces0 120 
work of, elective......... 211 scribes’ question con- 
' a divine agent ............ 211 CeINiNG «0.0.0.0. sic 169 
Human system: lifeand words of concerning 
Gosth ty ctne. ae cncts 70 Spirit.ie.cs. cette 170 
Goctrine ofnanwsaceae 173 
Inspiration : significance claims, Of %2<d..4c3 eee 176 
Of mieten ees 169 charged with  blas- 
gospel a stereotyped ... 171 phemY sitccteneeteens. 183 
Scripture given by...... 172 limitation of ...........0... 189 


verbal, essential ......... 175 prophecy at birth of ... 191 


INDEX 225 


PAGE 

Jesus: literal fulfilment 
of promise of............ 196 
strange paradox of...... 198 


words of at the cross... 200 
spake literal truth ...... 201 


government Of ............ 209 
Jesus Christ: ministry 
OL. a een 21 
time-ministry of .......... 22 
gives Great Commis- 
SLON Pa eotedese haut eds 23 


dualism of teaching of 112 
Jews: chargeof against 


OSUSiiie ss seerdec se seseeess 183 
SECA NOEs ce sctisccs desks 193 
church gathered from 

PHO eae’ 207 


John: mentioned ......... 183 
Jordan: symbolism of ... 110 
Jukes, Andrew: extract 

PP OWE OK occ ctitectes TAS 0G 


Kelly, William : observa- 
BIODLOLN a isaveastthsatene 77, 78 


Lee, Inspiration of the 
{ Holy Scriptures: 


quotation from ........ 179 
Leper: cleansing of ...... 36 
Lord: farewell discourse 

MDL Meee ea ee Looe ativeeh oeetn cs 23 

question concerning ... 29 
deference paid to ........ 30 


-glory shines forth from 31 
presentation of sheaf... 36 
words of risen .............. 38 
named the Holy Ghost 43 
words of concerning 

So PAaracletos = «/..2..ss0s 44 
Paraclete distinct from 46 
15 


PAGE 
Lord: speaks concern- 
Ing Spiritus iawn 47 
valedictory discourse 
OL ier dseerccce ten eaten 50 
return of to glory sac 50 
GyiIng OF .7a.vesieress we steeone 69 
complement of the 
CHUICH isis eetese sees 70 
resurrection of .!.......... 71 
AAVED TOR Mice wheres 88 
appropriating to him- 
SO] LG esses aces stheds 94 


assumed prerogative of 106 
words of to Nicodemus 107 
antithesis of two na- 


GUNGS TI oicieesescascsseees 113 
constant words of ........ 114 
fashioned to image of .. 119 
mystical body of ......... 123 
COMI PO lacerceetsarete tar 124 
experience Ofn.i:....s.00: 127 


guiding the church ..... 138 
post -ascension gospel 


ORGS seer ae erareree 18 
ASCEN CIOL. iia te atk -seceeece 140 
calls Saul of Tarsus ..... 142 
POWCTr OL AGEN chen 143 


conditions imposed by 143 
voice of heard in 


CHUTCHR senses 144 
commission to speak 

LON Ae ee 171 
Spirit breathed by ...... gee 
testimony of.................. 173 
Apocalyptic words of... 174 
Abigail’s prayer to...... 183 
words of, concerning 

COomfOrterice..c-caenece! 189 
messengers sent by...... 190 
a sin against the ......... 192 
exaltation of 2:3.....00.4.. 196 


sent the Holy Ghost..... 198 


226 INDEX 

PAGE PAGE 

Lord: harvest at return Paraclete : conclusion 
Ose Ee oven roa cre 213 regarding: scares 47 
Luther: pointed state- duties Of%. 2, Susans 51 
TMSM GO letyrerensee see ecascvs 50 teaching of esieessene 53 
wise words Of............... 176 difference of........0........ 56 
realization’ Of- csc. sececee 57 


Manning, Henry E., quo- 


TATIOMUNTLOM A ecvocesessese 20 
best treatise from ........ 22 
Master: instructions of 
to disciples............ 44, 45 
Method: that employed 
incwriting t4e..cene-ces ae 
Milton: quotation from.. 109 
Ministry: of Jesus......... 28 
Moberly: divisions of..... 24 
quotation from............ 24 


Morrison: comment of... 54 


{TOM cece eee eee 101 
Murray, Andrew: quota- 

TIONG ATOMs, ete ecces oie 74 
Neander, Church His- 


tory : excerpt from... 172 
New birth : definition of 107 
acquirement of.. ......... 108 
New Testament Scrip- 
tures: authoritative 
voice of the Lord...... 171 


Old Testament: words 
of Peter concerning.. 174 
as oracles of God......... 183 

Olshausen’s Commen- 

tary: note from 169, 170 

Owen, John: summing 


Paraclete: sent by Christ 32 
MCANING Of ceredsssttscesass 43 
attributes Of ics. cer 46 


question and answer of 174 
related to limitation of 


JQSUS cs ckssceccecensneseteues 189 
certifiesiton .siscecceeccesee 195 
with the Father........... 197 


statement concerning.. 207 
Parousia: Lord’s second 

COMING. ...-0-s.s2eee 56 

introduces the church.. 57 
Paschallamb: typology 


OF oc. ce ssegetecsuctecenescassen’ 36 
Paul: epistles of ............ 49 
words of.....78, 117, 125, 183, 
212,. 213 
@XPONENt Of isssssceeseres 90 
subject of preaching of 148 
work OL Sac rascgeent 149 
words of, interpreted 
175, 176 
LESION ViOlacas eee 
words of, before Felix.. 201 
observation of.............. 211 
Pentecost: work inaugu- 
Tate? Qtiseesscssvedsnccctes 23 
styled ‘‘ dies natalis’’.. 27 
promise fulfilled at...... 28 
impossible precedence 
OL sreidatisdestateeenee tea 35 
typology Of.42.A--.e8 36 
predetermined ............ 36 
has COMC:<. <0 ecessneees 38, 39 
church began its his- 
COPY) Oh. cutie cechee tecanece 61 
story’ Of ss.sctseiteeeek 63 
body of Christ baptized 
BE: ss1s0cdeMivans Pda 65 


INDEX 


PAGE 

Pentecost: Holy Ghost 
descended at............ 66 
foretaste!OLniiis.4.ces cess 78 
NCO LOL Bl reecse se taeeee 80 


Persons of the Trinity: 
deference Of.............. 34 


Peter: question of......... 30 
bold testimony of........ 39 
deep saying of ............ 109 
StbapementiOl.,.,.cbe.t esses 123 
reference of to Old 

TeStaMent..........ceeeees 174 
talk of, on Pentecost... 195 
defense of.............+ 195, 196 
WOLG SOEs tt swecesscceserssee 199 
inspired saying of........ 212 


Prayer: a vital element.. 151 
in thename of Jesus... 152 
high ground regarding 156 
connected with Holy 


GD BG Le iieisolcceteew inst 158 
Preaching: importance 

OL reer ev los teatieed of tadesee 148 

OIL NES CLOBS <2 7203 sd.esecesene 149 

the inspiration of ...... 150 


Redemption by incarna- 
tion : doctrine of in 


VO ULC csodeecgeae sss dessac. od 75 
Regeneration: what is 
Gh sen setetretssiesdaéceisee'cs 107 
DOWET Ofte soetrer ees eseecassce 108 
examples Of............2.0+ 112 
Resurrection: time fixed 
178) I pre, OT Seatac hist ecees 36 
Romans eighth: deep 
teachings of.............. 30 
Roos: quotation from..... 53 
Rothe, Dogmatics: ex- 
COLPUMLOM sstecsssseaceose 181 


Salvation: two sides to... 75 


227 
PAGE 

Sanctification: continu- 
OUST ictrctsssuatateseaee 126 


instantaneousness of.... 129 
Saul of Tarsus: sealed 


with the §pirit...... ...... 142 
Saviour: lived before 
INCATNAION ::ckcssececee 21 
redemptive work of, 
COM pleted, .......scsc.0s06 37 
PIOUS Ol ecraerciveh ssh soe 45 
follow teachings of...... 50 
and a comparison........ 52 
departure of, con- 
CIM ONIN Gee leuitsesssiee o7 
Seriptures: teaching of. 22 
confounding of...,........ 76 


examined, regarding.. 78 
given by inspiration.... 172 


definition of........ Pie 173 
minute study of........... 175 
literal inspiration of.... 175 
theistyle Of; s.--se:-s1serees 178 
divine Author of......... 180 
alleged discrepancies 
Ol Sire ee 185 
veracity of, confirmed 185 
infallibility:Olee--.sesss- 186 
contrast exhibited in... 201 
NATMONYiOl. cscs teeta nese 212 
Shechinah : resting place 
Ofiecaate om ceertoke eee 31 
Son of God: naming of... 43 
self-emptying of........... 50 
Sonship: doctrine of...... 109 
Spirit: descending on 
TOSUSI Matecctadeceresstaue 27 
study of doctrine of..... 27 
indwelling of............... 30 
sending down of.......... 31 
teaching Oli... scree 35 
ty POlOgyaO!l card ceseets 36 


228 INDEX 


PAGE 
Spirit: history of............ 43 
best dictionary of........ 44 


- promise of advent of... 46 
the measure of the Son 48 
signified time............... 55 
nature and offices of...... 56 
influence of, mani- 


festedtes eee ee 61 
baptistery of................ 64 
baptismiof..4aUsceiec: 64 
walk int:c thers ae 65 
praying: iniswa iin 65 
fell on house of Cor- 

melins.veicn ree ean aye 
supreme work of.......... 68 
the indwelling of......... 70 
enduement of............ 76, 84 
gift subsequent to........ 77 
appropriation of.......... 78 
God's ciltsewaeesm teres 79 
reception of.................. 79 
Cralis-Ofe a. eee 79, 80 
DaDLismyin Sheets -4 ee tcee 81 
Christ waited for......... 83 
ANOMTINg Ola. eveesaee 83 
sealing of the........... 84, 88 
possession Of................ 87 
freat office one....ane2. 87 
fullnessiofy eter es 89 
recepliomoticrg.iees 89 
infiiling’ of 22 eee 91 
supreme place of......... 94 
ahointing ofsseeun2A: 94 
sanctification in........... 95 
Of God suihea ete 96 
manifestation of........ 96, 97 
appellations of.......0.... 99 


Christian’sprivilegein 99 
illustrations of endue- 
MeENt; Ollie see 99 
yearning Of... 14. 4cdccd 100 
ONeCre Votre! Men eae 101 


PAGE 
Spirit : communicates to 

UBsicsoceccsesh ogous epee eouentee 105 
VLG: DY sisbsnanceeeceeeeeaes 106 
incorporation by......... 110 
of -holiness:7.4..3..5e:-a0 113 
supremacy of............:.. 116 
effects exclusion of sin 117 
behind eli: i234 ae 118 
surrender tO...2s.. vesssskis« 120 
Of glory Ags. ccd acs 120 
change wrought by...... 124 
working in US.............. 126 
perfecting power of..... 127 
descent:0f,..Ju.:\venkeeeee 140 
power of, ignored......... 144 
is the breath of God..... 146 
dispensation of the...... 151 
doctrine of the............ 153 
deepest work of........... 154 
Ministry. Ol.c..2:.48 eee 155 


strengthening power of 158 
access by, unto the 


Fathers dAvuveeucne 158 
method:of)..#0 2s: 159 
inspirer of worship...... 160 
iImitatiomof.s eveesacse 161 
StOLYOfis ree. ha eecaie 163 
directing enterprises 

164, 165 


Christians possessors of 169 
Jesus’ words concerning 170 
authoritative voice of.. 172 


intercedes for us.......... 176 
thoughts regarding...... 178 
of Christ necessary...... 182 
universal diffusion of .. 189 
conviction*Of2z tia 190 


sent unto the church... 190 
the witness to grace..... 191 


proceeds from God ...... 196 
sent to convince the 
world. £5. 242 ae 198 


INDEX 229 
PAGE PAGE 
Spirit: reflects Christ.....199 Tophel, pastor: quota- 
co-witness Of ............... 201 tionitrom ne... 33 
distinctive work of...... 208 CXCCrpu ironic ctecrcecs 104 
elective work of, com- Criticisny Of 7c... hace 147 
Pleted s. w,eccwisdseeeeen- 212 Types: accuracy of.....2:: 35 
Stephen: words of......... 183 foretell accurately....... 95 
error in statement of... 185 
Streams of life: two con- Webb, Bishop: extract 
trasted....... Wicccckaeressse? 110 PPO ee cece ere 68 
Word of God: a unique 
Testimonies: of new DOOR cutee reese oe 173 
MALOU ovh vs caveepe ctetces Uti veces 82 AN fAlliDlG:2.ccssnchtecasece ss 184 


Date Due 


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